


A Beast that Crawls

by cassieoh, knight_enchanter



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (except mercia in 889 instead of wessex in 537 bc historical accuracy), 455 Sack of Rome, Anal Sex, Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Babel, Binding Circles, Blood, Broken Bones, Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), Crowley and Aziraphale are cursed to never understand the other’s speech, Cursed, First Kiss, First Time, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Getting Together, Hand Jobs, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Historical, Injury, Latin, Linguistics, M/M, Mesopotamia, Miscommunication, Old Norse, Other, Scene: Kingdom of Wessex 537 AD (Good Omens), Scene: Rome 41 AD (Good Omens), She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Sign Languages, Summoning Circles, Tower of Babel, Wartime Violence, ancient nigeria, author is a linguist, christian rome, danelaw, dubcon, frame story, i'm playing fast and loose with my reconstructions, knights and squires, literally that’s the premise yo, mercia, non-European settings, old english, old english old norse creole theory, polynesian wayfinders, proto-balto-slavic, proto-indo-european, rather a lot of linguistics, specifically, this causes...predictable problems, vandalic, viking occupied england, welsh - Freeform, with apologies to any historical linguistics in the audience, written language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:20:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25385191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassieoh/pseuds/cassieoh, https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_enchanter/pseuds/knight_enchanter
Summary: Crowley hadn’t meant to cause any trouble in Babel, really he was just enjoying how very clever the humans could be and resting on the laurels of the Flood (who else could take credit for making humans so evil they had to be wiped out, after all). But, he was there and he encouraged them to ask ‘how high can it be built?’ and well... that never ends well. The Tower falls and the language of the Earth is shattered. Angels can still understand all the languages but demons lose that ability. Worse- because Aziraphale and Crowley were at the Tower when it fell, they share in the curse of Babel and can never again understand each other’s words.Explores how an angel and a demon learn to trust each other when they cannot speak, how the Arrangement comes to be without negotiation, and how they conspire to stop the Apocalypse when they cannot plan.The fallout from the Tower of Babel incident from Babel itself to The Apocalypse.(note: all explicit scenes are going to be linked so they can be skipped)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 152
Kudos: 108
Collections: Good Omens Mini Bang





	1. Swadesh

**Author's Note:**

> Art by [Katartstrophe](https://katartstrophe.tumblr.com/)!!! YALL!! I was so excited to get to work with her, she's just like, wildly talented and encouraging and i cannot wait for yall to see the art <3<3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a very short prelude to the main story <3 chapter one will be up lickitysplit! (aka, as soon as I finish coding it haha)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a head's up; I am tagging this fic as dubcon due to the nature of consent when the participants cannot speak/sign/write to each other. Please rest assured that they do communicate in the ways that are available to them and I would personally consider every part of their encounters to be consensual, but I understand that this framing might be uncomfortable for some readers. The explicit scenes are going to be linked in such a way that they can be entirely skipped without a text search and plot relevant elements are summarized in the end notes of the chapters where they appear. Take care of yourselves.

_ In the beginning, God made the Heavens and the Earth and there was a dome and it became the sky and all that rot.  _

_ Crowley! _

_ What, angel? Am I wrong? I was there, you know. I do know what I’m talking about, at least a bit.  _

_ As was I, my dear.  _

_ Actually, Mr. Crowley, I think he was more upset at you calling it all ‘rot’.  _

_ Do you see that Aziraphale? I’m a ‘mister’ now. You should treat me with respect.  _

_ I’ll do nothing of the sort.  _

_ Now, that’s just rude. Kids, don’t you think the angel is being rude to your poor, beloved Mr. Crowley _ _  
_

_ I think he’s being nice.  _

_ Well, Pepper, that’s because you’re awfully rude yourself and like calls like.  _

_ Thank you, sir.  _

_ You’re very welcome. Now, where was I? Oh! Right. God made the Heavens and the Earth which here means that She told us what to do and we did it. I was in charge of the stars. Well. Some of them. A lot of them. But, mostly the ones you can’t see from here. Except that one, right there. Do you see it?  _

_ Crowley, dearest, you know their eyes aren’t good enough to see—  _

_ The one that sort of looks like it’s trying to hide? _

_ Ha! Yes, Adam, that one was one of my favorites. She’s a little shy, but when you humans finally make it out there she’s going to blow your minds. See, I timed it so she’s going to be shedding her outer envelope, dying just in time for you to get there and see her in all her glory.  _

_ She’s going to die?  _

_ Oh no, don’t be like that, the puppy-dog eyes are just— I  _ invented _ puppy-dog eyes. I’m immune. It’s just that that’s what happens to stars. She’s going to die and she’ll leave behind all the bits and whosits needed to make a new star and you’re all going to have settled close enough to watch it happen. An eons-long show for dozens and dozens of generations of humans.  _

_ Are all demons so nice? _

_ Wh- I’ll have you know, Brian, that I don’t have a nice bone in my body! It’s to remind you that nothing lasts, to make people experience existential dread! Stop laughing at me Aziraphale, you great tit. I mean it! _

_ I’m sorry, dear. How about we get back to the original story, hmm?  _

_ Blegh, fine. Sure. Just no more of that nice talk, you hear me? Good. Right. So, in the beginning, God told all the angels to make the Heavens and the Earth and eventually Adam and Eve and the Garden. Yes, Aziraphale, that’s where we met, we already told them that story.  _

_ Actually, what was this story about again?  _

_ Really? I know human attention spans are short but that’s a bit— Babel. It’s the story of Babel.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'swadesh' list is a list of (usually) 100 words that the vast majority of languages have in common, things like "walk", "tree", etc. Linguists use it as a jumping-off point when comparing languages to determine if they're related or not as well as the first thing you collect when you're doing field work in a previously undescribed language. It's named for Morris Swadesh.


	2. Wéh₁imn̥ >> Suppiyahhanzi a Marsanuwan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to try and be linguistically accurate as much as I can in this fic, with one Real Big caveat; Proto-Indo-European (PIE), in reality, was spoken up until around 4500 BC. That is not the case here since this world wasn't even created yet when PIE stopped being used haha. So! PIE is still being spoken in this chapter, which is set around the year 2700 BC. I hope my fellow linguists will forgive me this diachronic sin <3

_The City of Babel, under the auspices of the city-state of Ur, year 2714 BC_

“Out of the way!”

Aziraphale whirled to see a man with an overladen cart bearing down on him. He hiked up his robes and scrambled back out of the worn wagon tracks that made up the road in these parts. As they passed the man and the donkey pulling the cart both shot him foul looks and the man twitched his braided whip threateningly.

“Well, I never,” Aziraphale murmured.

“The gall of some people.” The words slithered from the alleyway behind him, sleek and smug, and all of Aziraphale’s annoyance melted away because Crawly was here. He’d not seen the demon since the rains had begun to fall and, though he’d never admit it aloud, he’d been more than a little concerned for his Hellish counterpart.

The Flood had been terrible to behold even from the safety of the ship. Aziraphale couldn’t bear to think about what it would have been like had he not had those thin walls between him and the water.

There were a lot of things he didn’t like to think about (and more than he would want to admit were related to Crawly). He shoved it all away and turned, pasting on a smile for his adversary. Smiling, he’d learned in Heaven’s most recent field agent in-service, was a very effective weapon against demons who could not feel Her Love and thus never had reason to smile at all.

Crawly was leaned against the wall of the alley, his hair pulled into an elaborate series of braids that made him look dangerously refined and predatory all at once, sleek and ready to hunt. His yellow eyes glinted in the early evening light.

“Oh! Crawly! Hello there,” Aziraphale said and his cheeks hurt for smiling so hard. It was odd, normally he liked to smile, he liked the way it put humans at ease and seemed to help them in ways even his Miracles could not touch. But, this particular smile felt strange and false. He did so hate to be false.

“Angel,” Crawly nodded, the barest twitch of movement. Aziraphale allowed the smile to fall away to something much more genuine.

“So, what brings you to these parts?” Aziraphale glanced down the road. He could see the light glinting off the sea ahead, where the dusty hills sloped down into sweeping floodplains along the edge of the river delta. The dust was annoying, but it was the gift that the Lord, in all Her wisdom, had given to humanity after the Flood. The richest soil, fit for growing the best crops and helping humans thrive once more.

(One of the things he didn’t like to think about was this; he was fairly sure the humans had been thriving before the Flood as well. He’d seen their cities and their towns, marveled at the way they crushed stones to make pigments and then depicted wonders to be shared far and wide. He’d seen mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and others from the dṓm[1] hustle children to the rivers to bathe and then hug them tight when they were cold. He didn’t like to think that those moments, those accomplishments were signs of a need to be eradicated. But, he also did not like to question things. So he did not think about it at all, save in the dark quiet of the night when he had nothing else to think on.)

“Been here a while,” Crawly drew out each word into an entire concept, reveling in the ways that he could imbue them with meaning without changing their structure. In ‘here’ Aziraphale heard accusation—why hadn’t the angel done more, why had he gone off to Heaven, into the Ark, away away away. Why was he always turning away from those who needed him? In ‘while’ he heard loneliness and Aziraphale hoped, without quite meaning to do so, that it was meant for him.

“Is that so?” Aziraphale asked. “Well then, you’ll just have to show me around. I’m sure you know where all the best wine is by now?” He thought he’d heard loneliness in Crawly’s ‘while’ and hoped, without quite meaning to do so, that it was meant for him.

Crawly watched him, pinning him in place, freezing the breath in his lungs. Certain predators could only see their prey when it moved, he knew, perhaps this demon was like that—

Then the moment was gone, nothing more than the dust on a mule’s back. Crawly’s face cracked into a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. Heaven said that demons could not feel Her Love and therefore never had reason to smile, Aziraphale thought once more.

“I know of a few places you might enjoy,” he said.

And oh, ‘enjoy’ was a treat on that tongue. It made Aziraphale think of warm honied dates and stuffed figs and the sulfur-rich slick of wine in his mouth. He’d quite like to hear that again, he realized.

“Then lead on, my good Demon.” He gestured expansively towards the city on the coast before them. Crawly snorted and levered himself up from where he’d leant against the wall. He passed Aziraphale without a backward glance, leaving the angel to fall into step beside him.

“Do you know, I’m not actually sure the name of this city,” Aziraphale mused as they reached the crest of the last hill.

Crawly shot him another unreadable look.

“Babel,” he said, voice low and threaded through with something like pride. “The humans are calling it Babel.”

* * *

Babel really was extraordinary. They’d only rarely run into each other before the Flood and never since, but Aziraphale could still recognize the pride Crawly felt as they walked through the city. The smile he’d allowed on the road had not diminished. In fact, it seemed to have spread through every inch of him, a contented, defiant sort of delight as he pointed out the clever little things the humans had come up with.

“See that there,” he said, gesturing to the contraptions of wheels and ropes being used to lift heavy loads of stone and timber to higher levels of buildings. “They thought that up all on their own.”

Aziraphale watched as two young men moved a load far heavier than two humans should be capable of, one atop the roof, looking down and steadying the tightly bound bundle as it rose and the other taking labored steps backward, leaned against the rope and grunting with effort.

“It’s very nice,” Aziraphale said. ‘Nice’ was too small a word for the thing that he felt, but he wasn’t sure Crawly would appreciate him talking about the power of the human spirit and how they were ultimately meant to work together and raise each other up and... well, all the other things that demons like Crawly wanted to snuff out. Perhaps if he didn’t mention it, Crawly wouldn’t notice and the humans would not be tempted to sloth or avarice.

He glanced at Crawly, trying to spot what it was about these humans and their invention that caught his attention in the first place, but the demon had already turned away.

They continued to make their way down the narrow lane towards the center of the city, slowed in their progress by the sheer number of people who seemed to know Crawly. No, more than that; they didn’t just know him, they _liked_ him. Perhaps even more surprising, Crawly liked them, Aziraphale realized as he watched two children barrel into the demon. They knocked him nearly to the ground before he caught himself against a wall, laughing and scooping the smaller of the two into his arms while the larger mock-screamed and pulled at them both. Aziraphale stood to the side, unsure whether he was meant to rescue the children or aid the demon. In the end he did nothing at all; a young woman, presumably their mother, appeared at the doorway from which the children had emerged.

“Master Crawly,” she said, her eyes soft and crinkled at the corners despite the severe set of her mouth. “I see the Watch has caught you once again.”

Crawly, who was at that very moment pretending to succumb to the vicious attacks of the smaller child, only moaned in response. The woman looked to Aziraphale and smiled at him, raising one delicate brow. He got the feeling he was meant to understand something more from her smile, though he had no idea what it was supposed to be. He smiled back and hoped that was enough.

After a few moments Crawly stopped struggling and fell limp onto the packed earth; his eyes open and staring up at the sky, motionless, his hair a brilliant halo of fire around him, shattered into rusted plaits. Aziraphale swallowed. He’d not known Crawly before the Fall, but he had the uncomfortable feeling that he might have liked him as an angel.

It was a discomfiting thought.

“Pəulos, Mag̑ʰriā[2], leave Master Crawly alone,” the woman said, clapping her hands together. The children groaned, and the larger of the two (Pəulos? Aziraphale wasn’t especially well-versed on which name forms went with which type of child in this region) flopped flat on Crawly’s chest.

“Dunwanna,” they said.

Crawly laughed and scooped the child up, holding them in the air above him so that their arms and legs dangled straight down. They shrieked with laughter and pedaled their limbs, trying to reach him. Crawly lowered his arms once, twice, and on the third time tossed the child gently into the air before catching them again, pulling more raucous laughter from them. Aziraphale found himself smiling and then wondered what sort of trick this was. To what end did a demon play with children?

Crawly tossed the child once more; then, in a flurry of motion, twisted his grip so they were tucked against his side and stood. The child buried their head in his chest.

“They both seem much, ah–” Crawly glanced back to Aziraphale, as if he’d just remembered the angel was there. “–more energetic.” He finished, face blazing nearly as red as his hair.

The woman nodded. “Thanks be to you and Aeusos, Master Crawly. I doubt they’d have made it through the night without your help.”

Crawly transferred the child to her arms and waved his newly freed hand dismissively.

“No thanks needed,” he said, “Maybe one day these little hellions will do me a favor.”

“What’sa favor?” piped up the one still standing at their mother’s feet.

Crawly glanced back at Aziraphale before crouching down to the children’s level.

“A favor is when you do something for me that I need. It’s like when your mama buys bread from U̯eiktoros[3]. She hands him clay bits and he hands her bread. Favors are like that but with actions.” He reached out and ruffled their hair, leaving it terrifically mussed. Then, he stood and nodded to the mother. “We should be on our way.”

She gave Aziraphale another of those unreadable looks, “Are you taking him to the tower?”

A funny thing happened when she said ‘tower’. She was already a proud woman, Aziraphale could tell by the set of her spine and the delicate embroidery on her robes. But, when she said ‘tower’ she seemed suddenly _more_ than she had before. There was the sharp and nearly overwhelming sense of _connection_ and _shared purpose,_ something so very human that Aziraphale wanted to bask in it. This feeling was what he was meant to guard, he thought.

“—needs to see the view from the top, of course,” Crawly was saying when Aziraphale brought himself back to the present moment. The demon bid the women and her children farewell, promised the children he’d be back with _mersu_ soon, and then they were moving once more.

“Not a word,” Crawly snapped as soon as they were out of earshot of the little family. “I don’t want to hear a blessed word about that.”

Aziraphale frowned. “I admit I _am_ a bit confused.”

Crawly’s lip lifted in a half-snarl. “About what? Why I didn’t eat them up right there on the street? Believe it or not, I don’t enjoy being chased into the desert and discorporated. Odd, I know, but then that’s just me. Odd duck to the last.”

They walked in silence for a few moments before Aziraphale said, as delicately as he could manage, “But you’d have, ah, eaten them if it wasn’t public?”

He didn’t _think_ that sounded like Crawly, but then, they’d only ever met a few times before and perhaps the demon had changed. Eating children did sound like the sort of thing a demon would do.

It took him a few seconds to realize Crawly wasn’t beside him any longer. He stopped and looked back, startled by the twisted expression that flickered across Crawly’s face before it settled into cool neutrality.

“Of course not,” he hissed, surging forward and forcing Aziraphale to take a step back. “Undo all my hard work readying their souls for Hell? I play the long game, angel.”

The thought of those innocent children in Hell because they trusted a man they’d known from childhood sickened him. Of course Crawly wasn’t any different from other demons, for all that his form seemed fairer than most. His heart was clearly as shrunken and rotted as the rest of them, if it existed at all. Crawly seemed to be waiting for him to say something, because when he did not speak the demon snorted and turned away.

“Come along, angel,” he snapped, “I might get peckish along the route and pick up some newborn as a light snack.”

A strange curl of something that approached guilt twisted around Aziraphale’s stomach. He reached in with delicate fingers and plucked it away. It was wholly inappropriate to feel such things when simply looking out for demonic behavior.

He was only doing his job.

Comforted by this thought, he hurried to catch up with the demon, who had stalked ahead without pause; a lean streak of blue robes so dark they were almost black, flaming red braids, and sun-baked skin. They wended their way through the narrow streets, and it was not until they had made a few turns that Aziraphale realized the people they passed were still greeting Crawly. And despite his clearly foul mood, the demon was nodding back at them.

The realization sat uncomfortably close to the aching spot where he’d torn out the guilt, but before he could take a closer look, they turned a final corner and Aziraphale’s steps stuttered to a halt.

He sucked in a deep breath.

Before them fell the gentle slope of the short hill on which the city sat, down from the relatively dry grasses to the rich floodplain of the 𒀀𒇉𒈦𒄘𒃼[4]. The floodplain was filled with tiny humans scurrying about, their backs bared to the sun and bowed under their burdens. He watched in the periphery of his vision as their frenetic action coalesced into something ordered and easy. They were not the paths he would have chosen, but he discovered after a few moments that there was a logic to their movements. Only a very tiny bit of him was caught up in observing the people, the rest was overwhelmed by the task to which they had set themselves.

A tower.

No, more than that. Aziraphale had seen human towers before. This was not that, this rivaled anything to be had in Heaven. It rose, wide at the base, with a wall stepped out away from the main structure, its top picked out in delicate filigree stone, and narrowing slowly in tiers, a spiral path ascending the outside of the entire structure. The humans had taken different colors of clay and arranged them in intricate patterns across its face.

“Oh, good Lord in Heaven,” he breathed out, fighting the instinctive urge to sing Her praises. His voice in this form was rather less than subpar and he had no desire to be mocked for it.

Crawly rasped out a bitter laugh, sounding more akin to a crow with a bone stuck in its craw than the carefree giggles of the children he’d so recently held.

“Not her,” he snapped, “Them. Oh, humanity. Oh, the little ones. Oh, the ants you look down on from on high.” He sounded proud, the sick slick of hubris suffusing his voice.

Aziraphale could not tear his eyes from the wonder before him, but that empty, aching place where he’d torn the guilt away had begun to throb anew.

* * *

_Gabriel paced past him, resplendent in white robes decorated with carefully picked-out silver embroidery; the details glinting in the reflected light of Her Glory, his hands clasped behind his back. There was a mild scowl set on his face, just a few degrees south of his usual neutrality when Aziraphale made his quarterly reports. For his part, Aziraphale stood with his hands carefully held at his sides, wary of appearing either too nervous or too casual with his superior. Gabriel was a good angel who had more patience than Aziraphale thought he was probably worth._

_“The humans are turning their thoughts toward the Heavens,” Gabriel finally said. He paused in his pacing to peer out over the achievements of humanity spread below them. They looked so small, so humble from up here. Aziraphale was no longer used to looking down at them from on high. They seemed almost shabby in comparison to the crisp corners of Heaven._

_He swallowed, the index finger of his left hand tapping away within the folds of his robes. Fidgeting was a human affectation that he’d discovered last century. It helped him to relieve some of the nervous energy that always seemed to burble forth from his core. He did not think Gabriel would approve._

_“Pardon me if I’m being a bit dim here,” he tried for a friendly smile, though he feared it landed somewhere much closer to beseeching. “But, isn’t that what we want from them?”_

_“Obviously, you’re pardoned Aziraphale,” Gabriel laughed, though it did not reach his eyes. He clapped one heavy hand down on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “You know I can’t stay annoyed at you, buddy. I don’t mean they’re looking to our Lord. They seek to supplant Her Glory.”_

_Aziraphale blinked, his own discomfort forgotten._

_“What? How?”_

_Gabriel shrugged. “Something is happening in Babel. Get down there and check it out. I’m sure you’ll figure out what’s going on. When you do, make sure they never forget that they are unworthy.”_

* * *

Aziraphale scrubbed at his face, dashing the bright light of the memory away from his mind. Gabriel had said he would know his task when he saw it and Aziraphale had thought, until this moment, that the knowledge would take the form that Heavenly knowledge always did; a surety in his gut and a steadiness in his hands, the confidence that what he was doing was both the right thing and the Right thing.

This was not that. This was a voice that hissed in his ear, an implacable directive and a sick weakness at the base of his spine.

He was meant to tear this tower from the Earth; to shatter its foundations, to scatter the stones to the far-flung reaches of the world.

He was not prone to Wrath; no angel was, really. Their anger took the form of Righteous Fury on the rare occasions it manifested at all. Aziraphale had been properly furious three times since receiving his corporation and being assigned the stewardship of the Eastern Gate. In each case he’d felt triumphant, sure that he was channeling Her Will on matters.

Now, as he looked out over the tower, over the teeming masses of humans united in their blasphemous effort, he felt a more personal sort of emotion.

The demon at his side shifted and the wrath coalesced into something crystalline and terrible.

_How dare Crawly bring him here? How dare he show off this… This affront._ Another, far worse, thought occurred: what if the humans only challenged God _because_ of Crawly? Perhaps they would have built the tower anyway. But not so high and not so broad that it needed to be destroyed, were it not for the whispers of the devil on their shoulders.

He opened his mouth to say something along those lines but found the words stoppered by his anger.

He turned on his heel and stalked away. Through the haze of rage he thought he could hear Crawly saying something, but it was lost to the noisy bustle of humanity.

* * *

Well. That had certainly been a _thing_ , Crawly thought as he watched the angel walk away, the humans parting before him like… like something that parted, Crawly wasn’t sure yet. A sea. There was definitely something about a sea and maybe the color of apples? He shook his head to clear the thoughts away. It didn’t matter, he’d find out soon enough. What mattered now was that Crawly found himself out one decent conversation. It wasn’t that he liked the angel, or had even planned on meeting him today, but now that he _had_ met him, he’d found himself anticipating a good conversation.

It had been so long.

Since the Ark really. Which he did feel a bit bad about. Aziraphale hadn’t known it was coming and certainly hadn’t been any happier about it all than Crawly, even if he _had_ been unwilling to do anything about it. But, Crawly kind of got it, he himself had a dim memory of worrying about what his superiors in Heaven thought about his decisions. Back then no one had known what the consequences might be, but at the Ark? With one of the Fallen before him? Crawly supposed he understood being a bit skittish about the idea of disobedience. The ability to empathize didn’t make the memories of that time any easier to handle, didn’t prevent the ghosts of tiny hands from clutching at the hem of his robes. Aziraphale disappeared around a corner and Crawly, alone again, dashed the spectral hands away from where they clutched at him.

Fine.

He didn’t need the angel to get drunk and watch the humans achieve great things. They had lost so much in the Flood and built so much from the mud since then. He felt a little like each brick they raised healed something broken in him; though of course, that was a feeling he’d never put to words.

(It just would have been nice.)

Whatever.

He made his way back to the rooms he was renting, took up the jug of wine, and proceeded to get terrifically drunk.

* * *

_The City of Babel, under the auspices of the citystate of Ur, year 2712 BC_

Life in Babel settled into something that, if not comfortable itself, was close enough to be going on with. Crawly spent more of the day than he’d put on his reports simply watching the humans build. When he wasn’t marveling at what they could achieve, he went out into the city and worked to foment discord and strife in the people he’d been working on for the last few years. It all felt terribly inefficient, but it was what Hell wanted, so who was he to argue really?

After a few weeks, the angel appeared at the same tavern he frequented. Crawly watched in silence as he overpaid for a loaf of bread and honey and settled into a seat at the next table over.

“Lovely weather we’ve been having,” he said, voice thick with the honey. Crawly could smell it from where he sat, cloyingly sweet, spiced with something rich that Crawly couldn’t name. He glanced over, sure that Aziraphale would not be talking to him given how abruptly they’d parted before. The other’s eyes met his for the briefest of moments before he very pointedly turned back to his bread and honey, as if Crawly wasn’t there at all.

“Er,” Crawly said, unsure what he was meant to be doing. “Yes?”

Aziraphale tore off another hunk of bread, dipping it into the spiced honey and savoring it, pausing to lick the remnants from his fingertips before he spoke again. He did not look at Crawly, his eyes first fixed on the meal, and then cast out to where the Tower was being built.

“I do like the pattern they’re developing along the northface,” he said, still as if he were talking to himself, a thought put to the world, not an opinion to be engaged with.

This continued until Aziraphale had finished his bread and licked the last of the honey from his fingers. Then, he stood and wiped the crumbs from his robes. For the first time since the little glance when he’d arrived, he caught Crawly’s eye and his lips twitched into a smile.

“This was a lovely meal,” he said to the air, “I’ll have to return here. Perhaps three days hence.”

Then he was gone.

Crawly was left staring after him with the distinct feeling he’d just been apologized to. Eventually, he managed to take up his own drink again, a stubborn smile of his own firmly entrenched.

Three days later, he managed to murmur some thoughts of his own out into the space between them, responding tangentially to the things Aziraphale said without looking at him directly. Aziraphale drank wine and ate roasted figs and Crawly smelled their flame-cracked skin everywhere for days.

It became a bit of a ritual; putting something out into the air with no intention at all of receiving a response and then waiting, hoping, each time sure that it was all over, that there would be no response, only to breathe an unnecessary sigh of relief when the other spoke. Crawly told himself he was tempting the angel to turn from Heaven, but in reality, he was just happy to have someone to talk to.

Thus a season passed, their conversations growing ever deeper and the humans reaching ever higher. Crawly was comfortable with the routine, the calming predictability of it all. They were not seeking each other out, but the bitter tang of loneliness had eased somewhat with their ‘chance’ meetings.

He was… content.

Until one day Aziraphale arrived looking more harried than usual. Instead of visiting the barkeep and settling at the table behind Crawly, he approached directly and perched, tense and nervous, at the edge of the seat across from Crawly.

“Aziraphale,” Crawly greeted, taking a sip of his beer.

Aziraphale bobbed his head in what could only very generously be called a greeting, his fingers twisting around themselves.

“Alright there, angel?” Crawly drawled, his own nerves beginning to light as he watched Aziraphale squirm.

“You need to leave,” he finally said.

“What?” He’d thought they were getting along. What had he done—

“Babel,” Aziraphale clarified. “You need to leave Babel.”

“No chance,” Crawly said without hesitation. “They’re going to place the capstone on the Tower any day and I refuse to miss that.”

Aziraphale swallowed and looked away.

“They’re not.”

“What?”

“Going to be placing the capstone. They won’t be finishing the Tower at all. I’m to tear it down before they manage it.”

Everything in Crawly ground to a halt, his thoughts snagging against the idea of Aziraphale, who balked at stepping on ants for Satan’s sake, sending the collective effort of an entire city crashing down. People would die. So many. They’d already started moving into the lower levels of the Tower. Children, young parents, the elderly, all caught up in the crash of stone and the empty Love of an uncaring God.

Crawly had rebelled once on accident, but more and more he thought that, if he’d known what She planned for humanity, he’d have done it on purpose.

“No,” he said, trying to push all of that emotion into the word.

Aziraphale nodded, “I’ve been trying to find a way arou— Well, that doesn’t matter. I have my orders and I intend to carry them out. I would just hate if you were harmed in the process.”

“Orders!” Crawly sneered. “Bless your fucking orders! Does _She_ not want them to grow? Is that it? Because I hafta say, that’s sure what it seems like. Oh no, you started having a bit of civilization, better wipe everyone out. Oh no, you work together to create something beautiful, better ruin it.”

“That’s not—”

Crawly stood and stalked towards the exit.

“Just shut up, _angel_ ,” he spat the words as if they were the curse he wanted them to be. “I’m so fucking tired of hearing Heaven’s empty words.”

* * *

“Are you really going to do this?”

Despite having expected that Crawly would interfere in some way, Aziraphale still started violently.

“Crawly!”

“Pride of Heaven, you are,” the demon muttered, lazily flapping one hand towards Aziraphale. “Such a powerful angel, tearing down the humans’ achievements. Oh, how I tremble before thee.”

Aziraphale’s lip curled in what he might have called a snarl if it was coming from Crawly. Demons were permitted to snarl and sneer and smirk, all of which happened to be against Heaven’s code of conduct. He forced his expression back into placid surety. He was doing the Right thing and that was all that mattered.

““Begone, héngʷʰi[5],” he said, laying his hands on another keystone and concentrating.

_The human who shapes it from the clay of the river is ill, a terrible disease eating away at his ability to breathe. He should not be away from his home, should have listened to his honored wife when she begged him to stay. But he did not. He clawed his way to his feet and his brother helped him down to the river to work and despite the pain that lances through him now he is happy. His hands are cool where they mold the clay, his skin tight where it dries against him, and his heart is light because he believes in the shared work he and the others around him are engaged in._

_He knows he does not have long to live. But that doesn’t matter, because this tower will stand for all time and it will serve as a monument to him._

_A legacy that will shelter his children and grandchildren and bring comfort to his poor, beloved wife._

_He hums a little song as he works, the lullaby his wife had taught him before their eldest was born._

_His chest aches, his breath comes slow, and he is content._

Aziraphale ripped his hand away from the now compromised stone, gasping for air. Beside him Crawly looked wretched, face twisted in— in _something_. Aziraphale did not know him well enough to say.

“Did you do that?” he asked, voice sharp.

Crawly snorted.

“Didn’t need to, angel.” He reached up and brushed long fingers across the cool stone that surrounded them. Little particles of grit showered down upon him, speckling his dark robes like stars across the night sky. “They love their work, believe in it.”

His poison-bright eyes darted up, meeting Aziraphale’s before dancing away again. “You of all people know how powerful human belief is when turned to a cause that is just.”

“Not only just causes,” Aziraphale disagreed, instinctive inability to allow one of the Fallen to be completely right. “There are fanatics in all efforts, you know—”

The demon was suddenly much closer, leaning in until Aziraphale could feel the way the heat of the room seemed to seep away around him. He captured Aziraphale’s gaze with his own and held it this time, slitted pupils blown wide.

“Bless it, Aziraphale,” he hissed, “Do you really think that’s the important thing, just now? That I acknowledge toxic beliefs on my side as well?”

Aziraphale’s breath stuttered, catching against all the words he wanted to fling at Crawly but could not find the wherewithal to string together.

“Fine,” Crawly went on, “ _Fine._ Of course, those who believe in Hell cause great harm through the power of their belief. Desecration, for one.”

Aziraphale flinched back, finally gathering the presence of mind to begin his walk through the sublevels to the next keystone.

Crawly followed him, slipping from shadow to shadow, his face a rictus in the flickering torchlight.

The next keystone was shaped by four hands, rather than two and despite how little he wished to know, Aziraphale could not help but pull the memory forth even as he sank the weakness in.

_“Sereg̑ā no!” It is said with a laugh, a woman’s voice filled with love and care. The child tries to dart past, but her mother is quick, scooping her up and eliciting giggles as the wet clay makes her hard to grip._

_“Méhter[6]!” the little girl cries out joyfully. She subsides when a kiss is pressed to the place on her head that still smells of babyhood, settling back into her mother’s arms._

_“Would you like to help me?” The mother asks, already taking up Sereg̑ā’s hands in her own, guiding them to the formless mound of river-clay before them._

_“Yes!”_

_She has her tongue between her teeth and a smudge of still-wet clay on her cheek and her fingers are_ so small _as they clumsily try to smooth the earth to a shape that would hold for eons._

_“Do you know what this is?” her mother asks. The little girl finds a bumpy patch and begins patting it at, enjoying the wet_ pap pap pap _sound._

_“No, méhter,” she says._

_“This is to be a keystone, one of three,” her mother explains. Still holding Sereg̑ā’s hand she points up at the hill that rises above them. “For the great Tower.”_

_“What’s that?”_

_Her mother presses another kiss into her curls._

_“Keystones hold everything else up, my love.” She casts her gaze about, searching until she found a pebble of sunbaked clay. Carefully, she holds Sereg̑ā’s hands so that the fingertips of both hands are pressed to the pebble, a tiny arch with clay in the center. “Does that feel secure? Strong?”_

_Sereg̑ā nods, wiggling her hands a bit to test._

_Her mother reaches out and taps the top of the pebble, a gentle touch that sends it plummeting to the mound of clay before them both. Sereg̑ā’s hands collapse together with a loud smack._

Aziraphale’s fingers rested against the pebble of clay, still pressed where it had landed so many months before. He swallowed back tears. The little girl would be old enough to remember how the Tower she helped build came crashing down.

“Was that blasphemy?” Crawly asked, voice low.

Aziraphale’s mouth was a desert, his tongue sticking to the roof as he tried to find words to condemn what had clearly been a lesson taught in love.

“It must have been,” he said finally. “Or a sin at least. They— they worked with Pride, this Tower is a monument to Hubris after all.”

“Yes,” Crawly hissed, “Three-year-old children, notorious for their hubris.”

Aziraphale wished they weren’t below ground. He felt very far away from Heaven just then.

“Well, I am sorry, Crawly, but the Lord Herself wants this task completed. We can’t all flout Her edicts.”

Crawly’s lips drew back, baring his teeth at Aziraphale in a cruel parody of a smile.

“No,” he hissed, “I sssupose we can’t. Tell me, angel, were you eager to have been chosen for such an honor?”

Crawly spits on the floor.

Aziraphale thought about the cold look on Gabriel’s face the split second before he smiled, about the way his shoulder had ached for days after he left Heaven. He thought about the scales he could sometimes see peeking from the edges of Crawly’s tunic and about his private worries that he’d not be enough, that he’d Fall no matter how much he trusted God and Her Plan.

“Yes,” he said, willing his voice to remain steady. “I am always honored when Her Light turns upon me. I would not be whole without It.”

Crawly stared at him for a moment longer before snorting.

“Perfect. You’re the epitome of Heaven there, angel. Congratulations.”

Then, he was gone, slipping in the shadows at his back before Aziraphale could summon a response.

“I— I didn’t mean it that way,” Aziraphale told the dark catacomb when the oppressive silence settled upon him once more. Then, he took a few deep breaths and started down the path towards the third and final keystone.

* * *

By the time the last stones fell Crawly felt hollowed out, every bit of anger and betrayal he’d felt towards Aziraphale earlier in the day crushed to nothing more than the dust that coated him.

The humans were in shock. Crawly had done his best to warn them that something was awry, that they needed to vacate the Tower. But despite the high regard in which most here held him, there were always those who sensed his nature and distrusted him on principle.

Their cries wrent new holes in his already tattered soul, adding to the chorus of children shouting that they could not swim and the weak pleading of a young man to his enraged brother and that brother’s confused voice as he begged the younger to please, please wake up, why won’t you wake?

Crawly hated it, hated feeling so low and hated how that made him feel powerful. He did not wish to be like the rest of Hell, did not enjoy agony the way they did. But, as with everything else in his existence, this had been thrust upon him and all he could do was shove the feeling aside and act from the tiny spark of _himself_ that he tried to curate at his core.

Just then, with dust on his tongue and mournful wails in his ears, Crawly didn’t think that spark had much life left in it.

It would all be so much easier if he just didn’t care about the humans.

Crawly saw a figure emerge from the cloud of dust around the rubble, limping heavily. He sighed.

It _would_ all be much easier if he didn’t care. But, he did.

He began to pick his way across the rubble to the ailing human, already preparing for the burn of a healing Miracle. He was less than five paces away and had just raised his hand to snap when he figure raised their head, revealing bloodshot blue eyes. He’d only seen one pair of blue eyes since coming here.

“Aziraphale,” he said, voice low and furious.

The angel looked away from him. Crawly opened his mouth to rub it all in, to point out what listening to Heaven got you, but then he saw them.

Twin tear tracks through the dust that caked Aziraphale’s face. Crawly looked between them and his own raised hand. Then, he grit his teeth and snapped, the burst of healing energy sweeping from him to Aziraphale, pooling in the torn ligaments of his knee and bruised fingers.

The leg, Crawly could explain away as not moving fast enough after weakening the last keystone, but the fingers? The only explanation Crawly could think of was that—

“Karizzakan giman uruaz sēhur iman ārri[7].” Aziaphale’s voice was low and cracked halfway through. He wrapped his arms around himself and glanced up at Crawly, using one hand to gesture at himself and the fallen tower. “Tammuk istarnikzi[8]”

Crawly scowled, confused. If the angel didn’t want to be healed by him, _fine._ But there was no call for speaking gibberish to mock him.

“Susmas dālahhun[9],” Aziraphale said, sounding mournful this time.

“Aziraphale!” Crawly cut in, gesturing broadly enough that Aziraphale was forced to look at him, “I don’t understand a bleeding word you’re saying.”

Aziraphale stared at him, “Crawly, ngae nubngeshtugen[10].”

He sounded afraid and Crawly discovered he hated that tone from the angel.

“Calm down, angel,” he said, half feeling as if he was calming a territorial lion.

All of a sudden, Aziraphale froze, canting his head to the side slightly. His eyes widened and the air took on a sharp ozone scent, setting Crawly’s hair on end.

“Kreprialuskan[11]nepisaza katta iyatta[12],” he whispered, then, louder, “Crawly!”

“What?” Crawly’s head hurt. Why wouldn’t Aziraphale talk sense? Around them voices had started to rise, their pitch shifting from afraid to angry.

Aziraphale’s gaze was wild, the only colorful thing on him save the flushed patches of skin cleared by his tears.

“Crawly!” Then, he paused, glanced upward and took a few rapid steps forward, until he was very close to Crawly. “Ugtuk hul ūl iyami[13].”

Crawly shook his head. “Please, Aziraphale, I don’t understa—”

Aziraphale took up his wrist, squeezing tightly. He mouthed something, but the voices around them were loud and Crawly couldn’t understand.

“Please,” Crawly begged. “I don’t—”

Aziraphale threw him to the ground, a brilliant light lancing outward from the angel, evaporating the dust and leaving him pristine, Holy and furious.

Crawly scrambled backward, scraping the palms of his hands and his backside on the sharp shards of clay all around them. Aziraphale took a step forward, raising one hand and when Crawly saw the Light gathered in that hand he decided cowardice was the better part of not being destroyed and snapped two bloody fingers, vanishing.

* * *

Footnotes

1. PIE - house, here taken to mean the group of people living in one location↩

2. PIE - Paul and the feminine version of Marius/Mirjah respectively↩

3. PIE - Victor↩

4. Pronounced 'Indigina', this is not PIE but was likely borrowed from Sumerian into Hittite and would have come from proto-Sumerian roughly unchanged. It is an adjective which means 'fast as an arrow' as was the name for the Tigris River, referencing its flow compared to the steadier Euphrates.↩

5. PIE - 'snake', the vocative form of *h₂éngʷʰis. The descendant of this work in Modern German is 'Unke', meaning 'fire belly toad', perhaps a bit of Crowley's red belly carried down through the ages.↩

6. PIE - vocative form of *méh₂tēr 'mother'. The vocative is the case of calling, aka calling out a title or using a noun as someone's name.↩

7. Hittite - As the flood washes filth (and) mud from the city.↩

8. Hittite - Makes me sick.↩

9. Hittite - I abandoned them.↩

10. Hittite - I don't hear/understand.↩

11. Hittite - Gabriel, from the PIE *Gᵘ̯rebʰrialos following the changes proposed by the laryngeal theory of sound change and preserving sounds for which I have no evidence of shift.↩

12. Hittite - Gabriel is coming from Heaven.↩

13. Hittite - I will not harm you.↩

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title meaning(s): 
> 
> Wéh₁imn̥ - PIE - 'that which is twisted', derived from the same root which would give us 'walls' and 'wine'
> 
> Suppiyahhanzi a Marsanuwan - Hittite - 'made holy and desecrated'


	3. mes duwō śei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crawly misses Africa, but there are rumors of a powerful demon in north-eastern Europe and she can't let that lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title meaning: we two here (in Proto-Balto-Slavic)
> 
> YALL THE ART IN THIS CHAPTER HAS MY ENTIRE HEART AND SOUL please please go give kat all the love in the world [here](https://katartstrophe.tumblr.com/)!!!

_…_

_…_

_…_

_Well?_

_…_

_Ah, shit. It was too much, I knew it would be too much. Aziraphale, didn’t I tell you—_

_You did not._

_I meant to tell you then. It’s a lot of death and destruction for kids. I mean, you’re human. Death is a part of it, but maybe you don’t want to, to deal with it when you’re, I don’t know, trying to have a nice time._

_Actually, Mr. Crowley, sir. I think we’re quiet because we’re sad._

_Yeah, Brian’s right._

_That’s understandable, children. It’s always sad when people die. I’m glad that your videoed games haven’t—_

_Video games, angel._

_Right. Those. I’m pleased that you’ve not been desensitized to the plight of—_

_I’m not sad about them._

_…_

_Now, Adam…. That’s not. Hmm. Perhaps, when one is the AntiChrist, one shouldn’t proclaim that they’re not fussed about humans dying?_

_That’s not what I mean, Aziraphale._

_Yeah! Adam’s not evil! That’s just Judeo-Christian Propaganda and we’re meant to not listen to propaganda. Everyone says so._

_He’s actually a very nice person when he’s not ordering us around or saying our ideas for games are stupid._

_That was a stupid idea, though! They wanted to play witches and wizards with wands and Anathema told us that witches don’t use wands! It wasn’t right!_

_Well, that’s all well and good, but we can’t be calling our friends’ ideas stupid, dear boy. It’s not very kind._

_Yeah. No angel would ever say that their friend’s ideas were stupid, they’d have to be an utter bastard._

_Dear, you must admit that proposing that we defy our sides through mime wasn’t your most inspired plan._

_What else was I meant to do? You kept ignoring the— you know what, no. I’m not having this argument again._

_What was he ignoring? I’m sure it was very romantic. My mother says that big romantic gestures are pointless and deceptive, but I think I might like someone to make a fuss._

_You’re worthy of all the fuss you want, Pepper._

_Thank you, Mr. Aziraphale, sir._

_Well, obviously she’s— That’s not the point. Adam, what did you mean? With the mgph, ah, not caring bit._

_I mean, I care that they died. It’s sad and stupid and I’m glad I didn’t know about it before, I’m not sure I would have been very willing to listen to you if I’d known._

_That’s perfectly understandable, dear boy. I probably wouldn’t have listened to me, either._

_Yeah. But, the thing that makes me really sad is you two._

_Yeah._

_Me, too._

_…_

_Brian, you as well?_

_Yessirs. I don’t mean to tell you how you should tell a story, but that’s an awfully sad ending. All those people dead and you two afraid of each other. It’s like my aunt, before she left my uncle, but worse because I don’t think you meant to hurt Mr. Crowley, did you Mr. Aziraphale?_

_Of course not! Gabriel, you remember him? Grey suit, ridiculous scarf? He was my boss and he was coming to check in with me. I couldn’t have him seeing Crowley. He’d have discorporated him or—_

_Are you okay, Mr. Aziraphale?_

_I’m fine, thank you, Wensleydale. Oh, you’re such a dear Crowley, how did you know I left my handker—_

_You have never once, in the history of the Earth, remembered your handkerchief._

_Well, in any case, thank you. And you’re right, Wensleydale, I didn’t want to hurt him and I like to think he didn’t want to hurt me, for all that I was doing something awful._

_Never, angel. I was furious, but I’d never hurt you._

_That’s why it’s sad! You already loved him, I can feel it. It’s… it’s so old. You’re like one of those machines at the shop, where you put the pound coin and it spirals down and down and down. Every time I think I’ve sensed the last of the love there’s another little loop, another circuit of years. You’re not meant to be afraid of someone you love that much._

_…_

_Oh. Oh, I never thought about it that way. Crowley, my heart, you know I—_

_Tch, of course I do. S’fine. Water under the bridge and all that._

* * *

_Village along the Šešupė River, Źemēkjaukāˀ_ [1] _Lithuania, year 1500 BC_

Crawly’s dress itched. She hitched it up a bit, glancing surreptitiously at the oarsmen to be sure she wasn’t observed before elongating one claw and indulging in a good long scratch, all up the side of her left leg and hip. The claw left thin lines of discomfort, her skin over-sensitized from the coarse fabric and what she was beginning to think was likely an oncoming shed.

She _hated_ shedding. Bloody miserable process. She’d sooner spend another hundred years in the arctic and the last time she’d gone that direction she’d ended up sleeping right through her assignment, lulled into a stupor by the cold. Perhaps, once she finished checking up on the rumors that drew her from Africa in the first place, she could indulge in a long bath. She still has some Dhar Tichitt oils, they’d do wonders for the tight feeling that seemed to spread with each breath she took.

“What distance?” she asked the Headman. He was a tall man, lean and pale enough to look strange, accustomed as she was to the desert. He snorted a laugh at her stilted speech, only schooling his face when she did not return the smile. She was itchy and tired and already had a headache from the strain of learning a new language so quickly. She usually preferred to take her time, to linger among the people and let the little bits in her brain realign to something that approached understanding. But, she did not have that kind of time just now.

He cleared his throat.

“Until sundown,” he said, glancing out at the shoreline and nodding. “We’re making good time. The village should be just at the edge of that wood right up there.”

He raised his cane, a beautifully worked clay thing decorated with a thinner cord of lighter clay wrapped in tight spirals down the top half, and pointed to the place where, even from afar, the trees rose to dramatic heights. Crawly squinted, trying to judge distances but finding herself unpracticed and thrown off-kilter by the rolling, green hills. She’d just have to trust the man and his crew.

She sighed and nodded, slumping lower on her seat and hiking her skirt a bit higher. She might not want to be spotted scratching away like a flea infested dog, but she was perfectly happy to accomplish some passive temptation while she watched the shoreline pass-by.

“You never said what brings you this direction,” the man said. He tapped the cane once on the worn deck and the oarsmen on the left of the boat ceased their movements, sending the little vessel in a slow drift to the left and around an outcropping of rocks that dominated the right side of the water ahead. He tapped it again and they began rowing once more in unison.

Crawly thought about not answering, but she’d not tempted him into allowing her to join their journey and she couldn’t be sure she would continue to be welcomed if she did not acquiesce.

“Hmm, ah, stories?” When he nodded she knew she had used the right word. “Of a man who is not a man.”

No, that wasn’t it. That wasn’t anything she cared about. Or well, that wasn’t anything she cared about in others.

The Headman looked confused and Crawly stifled the urge to snarl. This was all so much easier in the desert. She clicked her tongue, pressing it to the roof of her mouth and drawing down fast enough that the air rushing inward created a loud _pop_ noise. That was all she’d needed before to convey that she was lost.

“A man who is… more,” she finally settled on. “Who is—” She gestured to the sky above and then the water below their feet. The Headman’s eyes lit in understanding.

“Ah,” he laughed. “The messenger of the Gods, you mean?”

Crawly nodded, filing those words away. What a fanciful way to say demon. She supposed it was even true if one considered Lucifer to be a god. She didn’t, but there were certainly some in Hell who acted that way. _Our Dark Lord says_ and _Damned Be His Will_ and all that rot. She rather thought they’d forgotten the entire point of rebelling in the first place. What good was all that pain if you were still serving a capricious, uncaring tyrant?

“Yes, the messenger. Are the stories true?”

The Headman shrugged. “I suppose. I’ve not seen it myself. But they say it burned an entire field to ash before it was captured.”

“How is that more?” He lifted an eyebrow at her and Crawly once again cursed this language and the loss of her ability to simply snap and understand. “Men can burn.”

“Ah, no. Not like that.” The Headman tapped his cane twice and called out “Źelˀak[2]! Come up here, son.”

The oarman closest to them stood from his bench, swinging his leg over and approaching with the casual, rolling gait of a man born for the water.

“Yes, wiśpatnīˀ[3]?”

“Show her.” The Headman’s grip on his cane was tight, and when she opened her mouth to taste the air she could smell the sharp tang of fear from him. A sweeping sense of dread filled her.

Źelˀak swept his cape back over his shoulders, securing it with a pin decorated with the same coiled clay cord. He lifted his tunic, revealing his torso.

Crawly’s breath caught in her lungs. She stepped forward without meaning to, her hand rising towards the injury that crossed his chest; a ruin of skin, burns that had clearly only barely healed, leaving him pitted and pocked and strangely off-balance.

“How did you—?” _Survive_ she wanted to ask, though she did not know the word. She _knew_ that human medicine was still in the wait-and-hope stages, burns such as this….

“The Messenger of the Gods touched me,” the young man said, sounding half-gone in rapture. “It burned the fields and I was caught up in the blaze, but when it saw me on the ground it touched me and I awoke like this.”

That didn’t make sense at all. Crawly wracked her brain, trying to think of even a single demon that both favored fire and would help a human like that. She could think of a few who enjoyed fire (more than a few, really; demons were not imaginative, and Hellfire was a bit of a branding thing) and a few who employed healing in their special brand of torture.

But none who enjoyed both.

“You said it was captured?” she asked.

An angry angel might manifest Holy Fire and feel guilty afterward. She thought of Sodom and Gomorrah, feeling sick again to recall the sharp scent of salt and bile on the air. There was a reason she’d gone to Africa in the first place.

“Yes,” the Headman said as the boy nodded. “Our śramaṇasya[4] blessed the chains.”

Crawly very consciously kept her breath even, no matter that it wanted to race ahead. She'd known it was coming of course, humans were terrifically clever, they were always going to figure out how to fight back against the supernatural forces on Earth.

She just hoped she had a bit more time.

“Right,” she smiled her best smile at them both, making sure to lower her eyelids just enough that she looked tempting rather than threatening. “I'll have to talk to this śramaṇaḥ then.”

The word tasted strange on her tongue, more foreign than even the rest of the language.

Hellfire but she missed Africa. Perhaps when this was all done she'd be able to go back for a few centuries. The Egyptians were always up to something fun.

* * *

The little boat arrived at the edge of the village just as the sun began to dip towards the horizon. The men stood and stretched from their hunched positions on the benches, stretching out their tired muscles and chattering amongst themselves, satisfied with the results of a long day’s labor.

“That’s the field,” Źelˀak said quietly, appearing at her side once more. “Just over there.”

Crawly followed his arm to a large area that covered the apex of a massive hill and swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat. Calling the area a ‘field’ felt like a bit of an understatement. As did calling what had happened to it a ‘fire’. Even from this distance she could see the glint of soil fused to glass. Whatever had happened there was outright _volcanic._

“Right,” she rasped through a dry throat. That had to be whichever angel it had been at Sodom and Gomorrah. She’d not heard of any others who visited Earth who were so prone to such overwhelming acts of Divine Might.

She really hoped it wasn’t Sandalphon. There was no way she would make it out of there if it was. Briefly, Crawly considered not peeking in on the angel at all, she could claim she’d not known about it, that she’d only been in the area because it felt awfully wholesome and she was spreading the Bad Word.

Even in her mind the words rang hollow. Dagon would never accept that reason. She’d want details. Crawly _hated_ having to go back and re-transcribe everything into the cuneiform the Lord of the Files still preferred (Dagon was not one for change, she was, however, one for tablets in triplicate. An entire Circle was dedicated to storage.).

She’d have to go look.

Around her the men were disembarking, leaping across the ever decreasing gap between the flat-bottomed boat and the marshy shore. As soon as it was close enough she did the same, trying to avoid damp shoes. If there was an angel here she had no desire to have to run from them in wet boots.

Once on shore, Crawly paused long enough to toss a small leather pouch filled with coarse chunks of salt to the Headman, fulfilling her half of their arrangement. His eyes lit up and she turned away before she could think too hard on how easy it was to make humans happy (or how much she’d sullied his soul, deals with demons were deals with demons after all, no matter their scale). He called out a farewell and she raised one hand over her shoulder in a jaunty wave. Then, she walked just far enough to be swallowed up by the late evening bustle before she slipped sideways into the shadows just on the edge of human perception. It wasn’t a Miracle, not really. She just imagined as hard as she was able that there was no reason anyone might look at her, forcing that belief into her very bones, and it became reality.

She made her way through the little village, pausing as she went to get the measure of the society here. The homes were low and sturdy, halfway in between the timber structures and sod dugouts, strangely organic and squat after the crisp stone and bright paints she had grown used to. The grasses that grew up their sides were cool against her skin and she indulged in a few seconds of distraction, leaning in to press her face to the closest wall and breathing deeply of the scent of new life.

The wall vibrated beneath her touch as the inhabitant spoke and she leaned closer to listen. She’d not want to visit the captured angel until well after dark, so she had time to settle into an identity here.

She was disappointed to realize that not only was the sod perfect for muffling human voices, but what little she could make out was terrifically boring. The lower voiced person was very concerned about the population of deer having declined or maybe increased, she couldn’t be sure and she couldn’t care less. After another few seconds, she gave up and pushed away from the wall, taking a few steps away before pausing to look around. The villagers seemed to be congregating around two buildings which were slightly larger than the others. Unlike the homes and stalls that made up the rest of the concentric circles of the village, these two were entirely timber; constructed from massive trees, clearly gathered deep in the forest and brought down on the river.

The closer of the two buildings was still squat, clearly older than the other, and modeled after the houses if the sod that crept halfway up the walls was any indication. She could hear raucous voices and something that approximated music coming from within and, when she flickered her tongue out to sample the air, smell the sharp tang of fermented goat’s milk. A wicked smile curled her lips. Who’s to say that she couldn’t get a little groundwork laid to tempt the populace while she waited to look in on the angel?

As she approached the drinking house she paused long enough to study the largest structure. When she was close enough, Crawly spied the delicate paintings that covered the outside of the timbers, hidden by the rapidly decreasing light until that moment. For a moment she hesitated, wanting to go study them, but decided she could do that later. The building was the only one large enough to house a captured angel, she’d have plenty of time to examine the art while hiding.

Satisfied with her plan, Crawly took a deep breath, arranged her face into something halfway between friendly and aloof, a combination that she’d perfected over the last few decades of work, nodded once to herself, and entered the drinking house.

The inside was a different world than the outside. Crawly’s steps stuttered, hitching with the barest hesitation when the wall of noise hit her. She frequented drinking houses, no matter where in the world she found herself, but this was so different from what she’d grown used to.

Among the Bemba[5] an establishment such as this would be filled with families, children running between low piles of hay covered by soft animal skins. The adults gathered in small circles on the floor, a communal pitcher of drink and platter of food between them. They rarely ate with their own families, prefering to intermingle, viewing the community as a whole as family rather than those who were related through blood. The conversations had been quiet but lively, the faces serene and joyful. Crawly could easily admit that she’d been rather lax at her job in those last few years, reluctant to bring strife to such people (which was not to say that she stopped removing the land boundary markers or whispering in the ear of young, eager men that _the Chief is looking awfully tired these days, isn’t he? Surely, you would be doing him a favor if he could only retire to tend his herd and his wives._

In retrospect, it had been those whispers that precipitated the events that lead to her needing to beat a hasty retreat.

This place was not like that at all. The vast majority of the people were men, shorter than Crawly by a good few inches still, but broad, with pale skin and long, intricately braided hair. They wore furs, thick and dark, wrapped tight to their shoulders despite the warmth of the fire that blazed in the center of the large room. The smell of damp fur, human sweat, and goat milk was overpowering, but only half so much as the boisterous shouts and rumble of the men. It should have reminded her of Hell, should have been repulsive in the same way as the close and crowded hallways between the Hellmouth and Dagon’s hoard of tablets where she reported.

But, there was something so incredibly _human_ about the place, about the way the men jostled into her and then half-turned, bobbing their heads in what was clearly a local apology, about the tired smile of the little old couple by the fire, the man carefully stirring a massive pot made of stretched skin on sturdy branches that seemed to be the source of the majority of the goat-milk smell and the woman who leaned over his shoulder, her hand cupped across the back of his neck, her eyes bright when she looked at him.

Crawly couldn’t look away.

She _hated_ Hell, resented every single moment she was meant to spend there, and places, people like this and like those she’d left behind in the desert, reminded her of exactly why that was.

People could be terrible. They could be just as cruel and capricious as any demon, more so in some cases. But, she wasn’t sure that there was _any_ demon in the whole of Hell (herself included) who could feel such contentment with such humble things as a good drink and the touch of the one they loved.

Crawly wasn’t sure there was a single Demon in the whole of Creation who _could_ love in the first place.

She shook herself free of those thoughts and wound her way through the crowded space, towards the couple. The woman looked up when she stopped before them. They each wore clay jewelry, this time in a dark red and decorated with spirals formed on the smallest cords Crawly had yet seen. The spirals were the same pattern and Crawly thought that probably meant they were married.

“Hello there, little flame,” the woman said, her voice cracked with age. “Welcome to our village, may the Blessings of the Light be upon you.”

Crawly nodded, unsure of what the appropriate response was.

“None of that now, Ránkāˀkanˀd[6],” the man said without looking up from the pot. “Any fool with eyes can see she’s not from here. She don’t know the Light.”

The woman, Ránkāˀkanˀd, tsked, clicking the back of her tongue against her rear molars in the same gestures mothers in the desert had made when their children forgot to lower the woven mat over the doorway that kept the blowing sands at bay. The little bit of familiarity made Crawly smile.

“Hello,” she said, doing her best to mimic the low, rounded vowels the people here used. Already the language was coming easier, each word the men surrounded them spoke roiling about her mind, slotting in place and settling to sediment there.

“Thank you for the blessing, I’m afraid I am not,” she paused, searching for the right word, “A believer.”

It was true. She hadn’t had faith for a long time and didn’t think she’d ever had the sort of blind faith most humans seemed to possess.

Ránkāˀkanˀd’s smile grew even as her man grumbled, “See? Told you, woman.”

“No one here is,” she said, leaning in as close as she could with the fire and the cooking pot between them. “We’ve seen the Colors and the Change for ourselves. No need for belief when you’ve Seen.”

Ah.

It was like that, then. The angel’s wrath had clearly addled them, even those who weren’t injured by its destructive power.

“The Colors?” she found herself asking, though she was sure what Ránkāˀkanˀd actually meant was the angel’s Grace, which would be far beyond human comprehension in its natural state.

To her surprise, it was the man who answered as he pulled a hollowed out ram’s horn from a pile at his side and scooped a hefty portion of the foaming drink into it. Crawly took it from him, giving the same head bob she’d seen the others make.

“Our Lord is a man of many colors,” he explained. “Always shifting and changing. He is never the same when he visits us. He tells us things, wonderful things and terrible things, and he asks only minor favors from us to show our love.”

A chill trickled down Crawly’s spine. There was only one being she knew who fit that description and was clever enough to trick an entire village.

 _Damnation_ but she hoped she didn’t run into Ligur. He was the more palatable half of the strange duo of Hastur-and-Ligur, but Crawly would be perfectly happy for the Dukes to forget she existed entirely. She was already feeling vaguely panicky at the thought of him being interested in Earth enough to stray from the targeted, long form temptations he and Hastur preferred. Convincing an entire community that you’re their God took a brain, took a level of initiative that Crawly hadn’t thought anyone else had.

(On a professional level, she was a little miffed that Ligur thought of it first.)

“Ah,” she paused to clear her throat, mumbled an apology in a language spoken halfway across the continent, and then said, “How long has your Lord, er, blessed you?”

The couple shared a long look.

“Since perhaps last winter?” Ránkāˀkanˀd said. Her partner nodded.

“ _Tas_ , that sounds right. Putāˀźámbas’[7] girl was sick and the Good Lord healed her.”

Crawly frowned, biting at her lower lip. She was sure that the demon was Ligur, but healing? That didn’t sound like his style.

“That’s….,” she paused and gestured expansively. “Very good, big good?”

Ránkāˀkanˀd laughed, the corners of her eyes crinkling, “We say ‘wonderful’.”

Crawly nodded. “That’s that.”

She took a sip of the goat’s milk and fought back a grimace. It hadn’t been sweetened with anything and the bitter slick coated her tongue unpleasantly. She missed honeyed fruit drinks. It was cold here, despite the time of year but it would be warm in the desert and her throat ached for a cold mubuyu[8] drink.

“Thank you,” she finally managed to say through the phlegm that filled her throat. “How do I, ah, pay you?”

Ránkāˀkanˀd waved her hand.

“No need,” she said, “You gave us so much salt for such a short journey.” She laughed at Crowley’s startled expression. “What? Surprised word travels so quickly? It’s a small community, dear.”

Crawly smiled a little ruefully. It was a small village after all, she’d not been thinking about how quickly word of her would travel.

“Then, I am in your debt.” She hoped the words would be taken as the promise they were. She did not like Ligur and would be perfectly happy to help the people here thwart him in some way (and the bonus of their souls being on her ledger rather than his was just a coincidence really).

The couple smiled at each other and her and Crawly had no idea if they understood at all.

“Wonderful,” she said and turned away.

* * *

She waited until the men began to filter from the room, teetering out on unsteady legs, their voices as jovial as they’d been when she arrived, if even less intelligible. By the time she finished the terrible drink she was finding the language as easy to understand as those she’d left behind and felt far more settled in her skin. It always itched in the early moments, when she was forcibly reminded of that which was stolen from her when the Tower fell.

Crawly shoved those thoughts away and joined one of the last groups of men leaving, slipping between the wide shadows they cast and then into the narrow space between the side of the drinking hall and the largest building. She paused momentarily to brush her fingertips across the colorful paintings that adorned it. She’d not noticed before, but they were brilliantly colored, intense reds and greens and yellows that these people should not have access to. It seemed Ligur was providing them with more than healing.

“What the devil are you up to?” Crawly asked the air. She tapped one nail against a delicately rendered wolf, depicted in reds and creams with its paws outstretched and a glint of life in its eyes as it chased the herd of deer she could see spanning the rest of the wall, spiraling out in organic whorls.

The art was beautiful and it made Crawly feel very very uncomfortable. Hell did not make beautiful things.

When the last of the men were gone and the light from people’s cooking fires was hidden by the draped skins over doorways, Crawly moved from her hiding spot and slipped through the open doorway of the large building, careful not to let any moonlight steal past her to light the space within.

Once inside she paused, scenting the air and finding her bearings. Unlike the drinking hall this building appeared to have rooms. She’d emerged in a tiny antechamber where the floor was covered in mud and dust. There was a bench to one side and she thought the humans probably removed their shoes to proceed. Ha. Crawly would _not_ be doing that.

She padded across the space as quietly as she was able, avoiding the stones that looked unstable, until she reached the next door. This one, unlike any of the others she’d seen so far in this village, was covered with a finely woven fabric in bright colors. Clearly traded for from a distant land and invaluable, and hung here where it would inevitably fall apart.

Crawly frowned.

She twitched the fabric to the side and peered through the gap. The space past it looked to be the entire rest of the building. It was lit by a single moonbeam that lanced in from the hole in the roof where fire smoke escaped. The pale blue light made it all seem much colder than even the light shivers that had begun to travel up Crawly’s arms and legs told her it was. She scanned the room for the angel, Sandalphon wasn’t a big guy, but surely he’d be—

The unnecessary breath caught in her throat because she’d spotted the angel and it wasn’t Sandalphon. Crawly shoved the fabric aside and strode forward, uncaring about noise.

“Aziraphale.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

The angel was seated in the middle of a large pentagram, his wings out and splayed to either side of him, feathers curled up at odd angles at the ends where they butted up against the barrier. He looked pale and worn in the moonlight, deep shadows filling the spaces below his eyes and the hollows at this throat.

Crawly’s mind was filled with the crash of falling stones and the still lingering scent of char from the field just at the edge of the forest.

Aziraphale looked at her and did not speak, though his throat worked as if he wanted to.

“What?” Crawly snapped, “Nothing to say to me? I suppose that makes sense, you only threatened to discorporate me last time.”

She thought about the sharp bite of divinity in the air as Aziraphale had shoved her to the ground, the way the tiny cuts on her palms had itched for days from the proximity of it.

Discorporate is what she called it, but they both knew that had not been the threat.

“Oh, the angel is too high and mighty to talk to the demon now, is that it?” Crawly warmed to her rant, turning on the ball of her foot and stalking in a circle, close enough to the edge of the binding sigil that she could feel it drawing on her energy, shoring up its defenses against the might of Heaven that Aziraphale could bring to bear. “Or, is it that these humans have grown too much and you’re here to destroy them again? I saw the field out there, that’s pretty work, though I’m a bit hurt you went for fire rather than water this time. Seems like you’re infringing on Hell’s IP there.”

She paused, wondered what exactly ‘IP’ was and why it seemed right to say before shaking her head and continuing on.

“You know what they’ll do here, right?” she asked, hoping and then hating herself just a bit for it, that the angel was afraid. She’d been afraid so many times.

“They worship a demon,” Crawly went on, wanting the words to hurt. “A Duke of Hell, one of my bosses actually. He’s not known for his mercy, especially not for—”

She paused and trailed off. The angel was looking at her, though his head had not moved from its semi-bowed position since he first acknowledged her arrival. His eyes tracked her and she knew he could hear, but he hadn’t reacted to a single word she’d said. He stared at her blankly, a tiny line between his brows and those dark shadows beneath his eyes.

“Michael’s a great feathered menace and you’d be better off taking orders from my left tit.”

Nothing, not a flicker of humor or anger.

Crawly frowned. She made her way around the circle again, this time actually studying the inscriptions. They hadn’t been able to understand each other after the Tower fell, but no one had. Crawly now realized that that was the point of the thing. A spreading sort of chaos that engulfed the entirety of human civilization, sending once peaceful cities into strife as neighbors discovered they no longer spoke the same tongue. Crawly had traveled far and wide, watching as some cities and people fractured beyond all repair, falling to death and blood, while others paused, took a moment to breath, and continued on as they had before, different only in that the people now learned more than language when they were young.

She’d cheered for those cities, thumbing her nose at Heaven and watching in wonder as the humans took to language learning like a demon to sulfur.

It only ached a little that she seemed to have lost the same knack.

No matter how far she traveled, Crawly had not yet met a people she could communicate with from the start. She had to listen and watch, waiting for the bits in her brain to realign to the ways her tongue needed to move and her jaw needed to work. It was frustrating and she missed the ease she had before, but it was familiar by now and she had almost stopped noticing, save when she traveled too far too quickly and the shift was more jarring than most.

Completing her inspection of the circle, Crawly stopped in front of Aziraphale. There was nothing written there which would prevent him from understanding her.

“Do angels take time now too?” she asked, knowing she’ll not get a response. “Have you not learned this language yet?”

But, she thought even as she said it, he’d been here nearly a year. She might have thought the burned field and his presence coincidences given that he could not speak yet, but he looked worn in the way that only a binding circle could cause.

“Aziraphale?”

* * *

Aziraphale watched Crawly pace, listened to her rant, ached with exhaustion. He could not understand a single word that fell from her lips, though if he heard her tone correctly she was not pleased with him. He supposed that was fair, they’d not seen each other since Babel and he _had_ put on quite the show there.

He shifted on his knees, searching for a more comfortable position before looking up at Crawly. The demon was always beautiful and now was no exception; she dressed warmly, in a thick woolen dress that cinched tight to her torso with a thin cord, dyed brilliant blue by some pigment Azirpahale had never seen before. A thin scarf in the same blue half covered her hair, held in place by delicate golden pins worked in the shape of snakes. There was a riot of freckles on her cheeks and the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes were deeper than before. He thought she’d probably been in the desert, there was something of the wild and open about her and he himself had spent the last decades on the steppe, moving with the herds and easing their passage and seeing neither hide nor hair of her.

She’s stopped moving, staring at his wrists and he realized ruefully that she’d not noticed he was chained before. She leaned in closer, incomprehensible words ceasing for the first time since she burst through the doorway. After a moment’s hesitation Aziraphale lifted his wrists, holding them as close to the edge of the circle as he was able so she might read them.

Crawly hesitated, glanced around, then reached out to touch the very edge of the sigil with the tip of one sharp nail. She scraped at the paint, starting from the outside and pushing inward. Aziraphale could feel the energy of the circle stretching tight, tighter, before it snapped. He gasped, grateful he was already on his knees as the full weight of Heaven landed upon his shoulders for the first time in months, sending him back and onto his rear with a thump. The manacles pulled tight at his wrists, their thin chain rattling against the ring set into the floor.

Crawly crept forward, crouched low and looking ready to flee at the slightest provocation. She had one hand outstretched and Aziraphale _hated_ that her fear was because of him. She’d never looked at him that way, not before Babel.

Though he knew she would not understand him, Aziraphale could not help but speak.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, trying to give the words all the emotion he felt. He’d done it to save Crawly’s life, but the confusion and fear in the demon still tore at something in him, even now, centuries later. Crawly paused in her approach, her eyes darting to his mouth and scanning his face.

_NONE THAT WALK THE SOILS OF BABEL MAY WALK AWAY FROM THERE AND YET SPEAK THE SAME TONGUE._

The Lord’s command, conveyed to him through the Metatron after he’d gone to ask the Lord for guidance, still echoed in his ears.

He and Crawly had been there together and they could never again speak the same language and he _hated_ that because—while he understood that the Lord worked in mysterious ways and he’d never say anything to question those ways—well, he really had enjoyed their conversations.

Aziraphale tried to smile, bowing his shoulders and crinkling his eyes in an expression he knew made him look friendly and approachable.

“Hello, dear girl,” he said and her brows quirked to the center, canting upward in an expression so endearing he could not help but laugh. “I seem to be in a bit of a predicament, if you don't mind helping, I’d be most obliged.”

Crawly reached out and achingly slowly took up the chains, lifting Azirpahale’s hands with them. She cradled the metal close, taking care not to touch Aziraphale’s skin with her own. The quizzical look in her brow shifted to something he might call concerned, were it not on a demon.

Crawly opened her mouth, but before she could speak there was a loud noise out in the village. She dropped Aziraphale’s hands and whipped around, egg-yolk eyes widening. She stood and crossed to the doorway, pulling aside the curtain and leaning out, eyes closed. Aziraphale froze, stopping his corporation’s heart from beating and the lungs from expanding. For a moment there was only silence, then, very distantly, Aziraphale heard the sounds of revelry.

He swallowed back his fear.

He had been in this terrible place for nearly a year; stuck in this circle, his wrists bound before him. In that time he heard the humans sound many ways, but they only sound so jubilant before-

“Demon,” Aziraphale breathed, even as Crawly spun back to him and said something, her voice tight.

She stalked back and took up his hands again, cradling them in her own. She still wasn’t touching his skin and Aziraphale knew he should be grateful that she didn’t sully him, except there was something in him he could not help but want to feel her fingertips on his wrist.

She said something, low and then repeated it again, louder.

“I’m sorry, I don’t—“

Crawly closed her eyes and bit her lip, clearly thinking hard. Then, she dropped Aziraphale’s wrists and leaned back on her heels. She pointed to herself and then to the ground below them, then to the entire room.

“You’re uh, leaving?” Crawly huffed out a breath and shrugged. “Ah, right.”

She could not tell him if he’d guessed correctly. Crawly once more pointed to herself and then to the floor, though this time she rested her finger on the paint that had formed the sigil before it was broken. Then, she lifted it and pointed out towards where the noises of merriment are getting louder.

Her anxiety was making it hard to think but Aziraphale did his best.

“You are,” he paused and thought. “No, not you, A demon like you?” Her finger on the paint. “The demon who drew the sigil? Are they coming here?”

He thought of the reverberation freeing a trapped angel would cause and was sure that he’d guessed right. He bit back the flood of questions he wanted to ask and instead said only, “Will you free me?”

He lifted his wrists towards Crawly, hoping the gesture was enough.

Crawly wouldn’t meet his eyes, her own fixed somewhere over his left shoulder, her fingers clenching and unclenching at her sides. Why was she—? Oh. The thought occurred to Aziraphale just as the humans’ voices began to take on distinct features. They were close now. Crawly was afraid. Something about this other demon frightened her and she was torn between fleeing and staying to help Aziraphale[9]

“Crawly,” he said and just as he could when she said his own name, she perked up in understanding. When he was sure she was looking, he smiled and nodded, pulling his hands from hers and giving her a light push towards the exit.

“Go,” he told her, no matter that it was useless, “It’s perfectly alright. I understand.”

He was not lying to her. After all, didn’t he threaten Crawly at Babel? He told himself it was because he didn’t want Gabriel to see that he’d been consorting with a demon, but Aziraphale knew that that wasn’t the truth. It was closer to the fact that smiting was rather final and Azirpahale _liked_ Crawly, as much as he didn’t want to.

Crawly was staring at him, looking hopelessly lost and stressed and a surge of something far more personal than ‘respect for one’s opposite’ rose within Aziraphale. He did not want to endure whatever the other demon had planned for him, did not want to participate in whatever terrible ritual the humans were so excited about, but he could not be the reason Crawly was in danger and he needed only see her fear to know that her presence here had put her in danger.

“I promise you,” he said, baring his teeth in what he hoped was an encouraging expression and pushing at her arm again. “I will be alright.”

* * *

Crawly was going to find Ligur’s horrible little lizard _thing_ and step on it the next time she was in Hell. Or, perhaps she’d eat it. She was large enough and her snake form was always ravenous. She’d hunt down the lizard and she’d snap it up in a single bite and she’d enjoy it.

She could sense him getting closer. Aziraphale’s presence, so muted by the chains but still so overwhelming, would not hide her for much longer. If she remained much longer, Ligur would discover that it wasn’t some sympathetic human who broke the sigil.

Aziraphale pushed at her again, still making that terrible face. She was no expert, but Crawly was pretty sure that wasn't a smile. It reminded her of the way a badger bared its teeth at larger predators, afraid and determined to stand its ground anyway. It was hopelessly endearing and the _thing_ in her chest that she had been trying to squash ever since the Tower fluttered defiantly.

She just needed a moment to think. Ligur was going to do terrible things to Aziraphale, maybe even drag him to Hell now that his earthly bindings had failed. Crawly could not abide that. She could stay, try to mitigate anything Ligur had planned, but the idea of trying to tempt a Duke towards temperance was… daunting to say the least. The stakes were too high for that. She could not trust herself to succeed when it was Aziraphale’s life that hung in the balance. She could just leave, could pat the hand he kept placing on her and go without a backwards glance. That would be the appropriately demonic thing to do.

She made it as far as standing before she realized she could not do that either. Aziraphale’s rictus grin had grown wider—he was trying to lie to her. To tell her that she was doing what he wished.

Angels, she thought, should not try to lie to demons.

She could not leave and she could not stay and she could not abide the idea of Aziraphale enduring the slow torture Ligur would have planned for him.

Crawly gripped the hair at her temples, yanking on it as she paced back and forth, desperate for an idea. Aziraphale spoke and she paused, turning to look at him. He gestured to the knife in her boot, revealed by her pacing. Then, he raised his manacled hands and slid them across his throat.

Crawly froze.

He wanted her to—

No.

_No._

She could not. Would not. She refused.

“Are you insane?” she snapped out. Crawly ripped the knife from her boot and stalked close, trying to ignore how he did not flinch away. “Did your one of your wheels Fall off and leave only this?”

She gestured towards his corporation with the knife and still no flinch. In fact, he tilted his head back to reveal more of his throat, that terrible grimace softening to something much kinder, much more real.

Crawly’s steps faltered.

She pictured doing it, pictured the way the knife would slip through the outer layers of skin and sinew, deeper, deeper, until it ran aground at the junction between bone and her hands were soaked through with blood. She’d wait long enough that all remained was a body, nothing holy or special about it save that it had held her—

Save that she had created it.

Crawly had never killed anyone before.

Aziraphale’s voice was soft and his smile real and Crawly could not kill him.

Outside, the humans sounded close enough to touch and now Crawly could hear one voice amongst the babble promising that they would all get their reward for guarding Hell’s prize so well these long months. There was much to prepare in the Pit for an angelic visitor after all.

Aziraphale had turned towards the doorway, clearly listening, because his eyes widened in fear, the first that Crawly had seen since arriving.

He said something and now he sounded afraid as well and Crawly shoved the knife back in her boot. She snatched up the manacles and examined them, hoping against hope that they weren’t—

Of course they were.

Hellfire forged and the only things on Earth that could bind an angel’s power away for so long.

Only one force could destroy Hellfire forged metal.

Crawly’s hands shook.

“Aziraphale,” she said lowly, aware now that Ligur could burst in at any moment.

“I can get you out of this but you have to trust me. I promise,” she paused and shifted her hands so that she gripped Aziraphale’s flesh instead of cold metal. He gasped, eyes widening, but she forged ahead, “I _promise_ that I will not harm you or let you come to harm here.”

He scanned her face, clearly lost and looking for something. Outside, there was a cheer.

“Aziraphale,” Crawly begged.

The angel glanced down at their joined hands and then back up at Crawly. The smile reappeared and he nodded, once.

With no time to waste, Crawly held Aziraphale’s hands in one of hers and used the other to shove his sleeves back up above his elbows. Then, with her free hand she snapped and a tiny jet of Hellfire sprang to life on her fingertip. Immediately she could feel it eating away at her; no single entity was meant to fuel Hellfire, it was hungry, all-consuming, and had a mind of its own. Perhaps Lucifer could maintain a Hellfire blaze on his own, but Crawly was already sweating by the time she met Aziraphale’s gaze and nodded, reaffirming the promise she’d made. The blue of his eyes was entirely gone, washed out to nothing by the flame at her fingertip.

She lowered the Hellfire and carefully directed it along the seam of the cuffs, angling up and away from Aziraphale’s skin. It sparked and spit, leaving pinprick burns in his flesh, but he did not flinch away. There was a terrible moment, near the end when the Hellfire cut through one of the inscribed runes on the cuff and flared up, sending sparks further. One landed on Aziraphale’s left sleeve which had begun to slide down his arm. It caught immediately and Crawly bit her tongue to stop herself from crying out in fear. She let go of Aziraphale’s hands and reached out, patting frantically at the tiny flames. Aziraphale held very still, a grimace of pain set deep on his face, until she was sure there was no more danger. Then, he lifted his hands again and she got back to work.

It must have taken less than a minute to cut through the cuffs, for Ligur had not yet appeared ( _he always had been a bit of an attention hound_ , Crawly thought). But, despite the short time, Crawly could barely keep her feet, utterly exhausted. Aziraphale waited a moment to be sure she was done before he twisted his wrists and pulled them apart, shattering the cuffs and sending them to the floor with a clatter.

Crawly blinked, feeling unaccountably warm.

 _Noise is bad_ , she thought, distantly sure she should be doing something.

Aziraphale was speaking.

“Can’t ‘nderstand a bleedin’ word y’say,” Crawly groused at him. She tried to take a step and found she could not move. “S’not polite.”

Aziraphale spoke again, softer this time, and suddenly there was an arm looped under Crawly’s arms and knees and she was being lifted.

Quiet nonsense in her ear and warm breath on her face.

Crawly knew no more.

* * *

_What? No—_

_You can’t just—_

_Mr. Crowley!! You can’t stop there!_

_Please!_

_That does seem unnecessarily dramatic, dear._

_How’sat dramatic? It’s the truth. I freed you and then I—_

_Swooned? Right into my arms?_

_I did not swoon._ Demons do not swoon.

_I don’t know, Mr. Crowley. My mother gave me a word of the day calendar and the definition of ‘to swoon’ is ‘ to faint, particularly when faced with something that causes you great joy or—’_

_That’ll be enough of that now, Wensleydale. No one likes a know-it-all._

_Mr. Crowley! You have to tell us what happened, did Mr. Aziraphale get captured? Did you have to fight your way out?_

_What happened to the townspeople?_

_What about Ligur? Who’s that? Is he still your boss? Why does he have a pet lizard? Thought demons only kept Hellhounds as pets._

_Slow down, slow down. Crowley can’t answer all your questions at once. We’ll go in order. Let’s see…. Brian, you weren’t interrupting, do you have any questions?_

_Yessir, I do! But, it’s for you, not Mr. Crowley._

_No, that’s better. Harass him for once._

_Crowley._

_Were you hurt badly? You told us before that Hellfire can kill an angel for good and Mr. Crowley used Hellfire to rescue you, did it hurt?_

_That’s…. That’s a very conscientious question, young man._

_Thank you, sir._

_The answer to your question is complicated. My earthly form was not hurt too terribly, though I do have a few scars still, as I was rather fond of them by the time Adam here recorporated me. See?_

_The little gold marks?_

_Yes, Pepper. Angel blood is gold. Or rather, it’s gold when our real body is injured. You see, most of the time you could do whatever you wanted to this form and I would not feel it the slightest in my actual form, but Hellfire is different because it hurts both forms at once. So, I have these scars on both my Earthly body and my real one._

_That’s really cool!_

_Ngph._

_Something to say, my love?_

_Just don’t like you having them at all. S’nothing._

_…_

_Ugh, don’t look at me like that. Adam, you had a properly demonic question, what was it?_

_Uhh, oh! Did you have to fight your way out?_

_Now, I don’t remember this bit on account of—_

_Having swooned._

_—_ being very courageously asleep for a bit, _but no. See, Ligur was an arrogant fool and…_

Footnotes:

1. Šešupė is the modern Lithuanian name for this river, I was not able reliably reconstruct an older form. Źemēkjaukāˀ is comprised of two Proto-Balto-Slavic (the language of the place/time) roots: Źemē, from PIE *dʰéǵʰōm meaning earth or soil, and *kjaukāˀ, from PIE *kewk- meaning to elevate or to crook; together they would mean "highlands".↩

2. I am using the pre-Christian Lithuanian naming tradition; two nouns or a noun and an adjective together. In this case Proto-Balto-Slavic (PBS) Źel (green) + ˀak (eye)↩

3. PBS- chief, from PIE From *wiḱ-pót-nih₂, itself a derived term from *weyḱ- (village, household) + *pótis (master)↩

4. From Proto-Tungusic *samān (shaman), compare Nanai сама̄н and Manchu ᠰᠠᠮᠠᠨ (saman). Probably from Sanskrit श्रमण (śramaṇa, ascetic, monk) or Pali samaṇa, likely through Middle Chinese 沙門 (shāmén). Fun fact! The Sanskrit word also refers to a serpent demon ;)↩

5. This is the modern name for a people in North-eastern Zambia who likely would not have existed at this time. However, due to colonial forces and the loss of many ancient ways of conveying information to new generations, we dont know a great deal about Subsaharan Africa before ~500 BC. I am using the modern name as no historical name is known and I want to be clear about the location and possible culture in question. The language spoken by Bemba people today is called ChiBemba and it is part of the Bantu language family.↩

6. PBS - ránkāˀ (hand) kanˀd (to bite), together meaning one who bites the hand↩

7. PBS - Putāˀ (bird) + źámbas (tooth), together meaning bird's tooth or little impossible thing (colloquially).↩

8. Modern word for the fruit of the baobab tree in Bamba, I was not confident that the reconstructed word would refer to the correct fruit, so modern word haha.↩

9. It would not occur to him until many, many years later that the thought of Crawly joining the other demon never crossed his mind.↩


	4. Valdali Murum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a unique set up this chapter haha, but, there will be a much longer one on Saturday (8/1). 
> 
> Chapter title meaning: The Vandals on the Walls (Latin)

_We’re moving awfully slowly, my dear. Perhaps we should skip ahead a bit? If we wish to get to the present before these rapscallions are called home._

_Hmm? Oh, yeah, s’pose we could skip ahead a bit. What d’you think?_

_Perhaps Qi-?_

_Blgh, no. He was the worst, I will never know why you liked that pretentious little-_

_Well, then you pick, oh all knowing demon._

_Nice of you to admit it._

_Quite._

_Ah, hmm._

_Difficult isn’t it? There really is quite a lot of human history._

_Shuddup._

_My lips are sealed. You have the reins, my dear._

_Ugh, fine okay. Rome. Uhh, not the Republic, bugger all happened then._

_Actually, I don’t think that’s entirely true Mr. Crowley. The Roman Republic was-_

_Yeah, yeah. I mean bugger all_ interesting. _No, and not the early Empire. Augustus wasn’t a bad sort was ugh, all the rest was just- No._

_Perhaps, oh when was it that we had such a wonderful meal? 410? No, later I think, 455?_

_Yes! You glorious bastard you, okay kids. The place is The Eternal City, the year four hundred and fifty five._

* * *

_Roma, Romani Imperii Occidentis, 455 Anno Domini_

Aziraphale was, if he was being honest, not a fan of the current century. Oh, Rome was still _Rome._ But, it all seemed rather performative now. He would never say it in Heaven, for fear that the wrong conclusions would be drawn, but he missed the days before Rome was Christian. 

Of course, he’d worked even then to help people find the right path and live in a way that would ensure they were free to enjoy eternal peace after their death. In those days, he’d been free to do so in a more holistic way. Then, he’d been able to encourage them to give to their neighbors and look out for the vulnerable without having to couch it in dogma or tell them they had to trust in the word of other humans to find the path to salvation. 

Worse than that was all the pomp and circumstance he suddenly discovered humans were capable of and seemed to delight in. Faith had never been _simple;_ not the way it was for angels who needed nothing to worship, save their thoughts and their connection to the Almighty. Humans liked ritual and tradition, they liked to have special places and words they used. Over time Aziraphale had discovered he liked the ways that the words would take on deeper meaning the more they were repeated, gathering up all the hopes and dreams and determination of generations after generations of humans. 

All that was nice. 

The issue, Aziraphale thought, was when some humans tried to enforce what words others used. It robbed them of all meaning if there was no choice. How could the humans ever truly prove themselves worthy of Heaven if they weren’t the agents of their own fates? 

That was the core of his trouble with Rome as it existed now. The opulence and the way the various emperors tried to force their beliefs on others rankled, and left him with thoughts that would seem less out of place coming from Crawly’s mouth than rattling about his mind. He’d not seen the demon for a few years and (obviously) had not spoken for so very much longer, but the invectives hurled at Babel lingered. 

He’d never meant to imply that the humans were lesser or that they didn’t deserve the chances they were given. He just— 

* * *

_Wait! No! That’s so much time!_

_Yeah, sirs, please you can’t skip that much again!_

_Actually, it is a lot of time to skip, good storytelling—_

_My mother says that stories should go at the same pace. Have either of you ever taken a class on—_

_Ugh, no. How dare you imply I’ve taken classes._

_Crowley, you taught at Oxford. For decades._

_But, I didn’t_ take _classes._

_Now, that’s not exactly a reasonable distinction to make and you know it, dear._

_You taught at Oxford? What subjects? Are you even qualified?_

_Yeah, don’t you have to have written a—_

_Nah, this was a bit ago. Ergh, the 80s? Yeah, that sounds right._

_Actually, I think they still had requirements for professors in the eighties, Mr. Crowley._

_He means the 1180s, dear boy. Requirements were, ah, just a bit looser in those days._

_What he means is that I was alive and knew more than the previous sod about the stars. Was nice and all, students were clever and wasn’t any reading or nothin’, just tellin’em how it worked and watching the little chaos vectors go out into the world and tell everyone else they were wrong. Damn satisfying work._

_I’m so glad you didn’t try and teach me to be the AntiChrist, I don’t want to be a nerd._

_That’s awfully rude, Adam._

_Sorry, Mr. Aziraphale. I don’t want to be a nerd, sir?_

_Snrk. Better. Anyway, the point is…. Wait. What was my point. Why were we talking about this?_

_Your teaching days. I must say, I found the robes rather fetching. And those little glasses were—_

_No! You skipped too much time in the story. Please go back, not skip more!_

_Ah, right. Well, if it really bothers you that much, Pepper, I don’t suppose there’s any issue with covering a few details of those years._

_Yeah sure, whatever. We’ve got the time. Parents won’t be expecting you lot back until sunset anyway._

_Shall we say… one time period each? Something quick, I should think._


	5. Rapid Communicative Advances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids want to know what happened between 1500 BC and 455 CE, so they each pick a person/place to hear a short story about. Feat: Boudica, the Nok, Polynesian Wayfinders, and Jesus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few warnings for this chapter; 
> 
> (1) implication of rape; Boudica is featured as a character and the things she/her daughters endured are obliquely referenced, as are the events of her rebellion. There are no details of sexual assault. If you would like to skip this scene there will be a link just before it starts and a summary in the end notes.  
> (2) Wartime violence - again related to Boudica and her campaign. There are a few more details here, but not anything approaching a graphic violence warning.  
> (3) emetophobia/seasickness (not graphically described)  
> (4) Blasphemy? Is this a thing we need to warn for here? Well, just in case; Jesus is a character in this chapter. He’s a young child and then a teenager and he behaves like a young child and a teenager.

_Ah, right. Well, if it really bothers you that much, Pepper, I don’t suppose there’s any issue with covering a few details of those years._

_Yeah sure, whatever. We’ve got the time. Parents won’t be expecting you lot back until sunset anyway._

_Shall we say… one time period each? Something quick, I should think. Pepper, would you like to start us off?_

_Boudicca. My mom almost named me Boudicca and Pippin is a stupid name, I want to know about who I could have been named after._

_Ohh, now_ there _was a character. Crowley, you we’re, ah, acquainted, I believe?_

_Er, yeah. We were. Friends, I think. She thought I was a goddess and wouldn’t take no for an answer on that one._

_Well, you are—_

_Not in front of the children, angel._

_Ha, alright, my dear._

_What happened? Did you help her rebellion? Was she brilliant with a sword? I bet she was._

_Yes, I was there for that. You know I really didn’t mean for things to get quite so out of hand. I was upset with Rome and Boudicca was as well and we ended up going a bit far._

_A bit?_

_Yes, angel. A bit. It’s not like there wasn’t cause. They deserved what they got. Mostly._

[skip to summary]

* * *

_Kingdom of Iceni in Roman Britain, CE 60_

“You say you are not Andraste?” 

Crowley looked away from the teeming masses that roiled about them, eyes snagging on bright blood and the flash of stolen blades before she found Boudica. The other woman’s white dress had turned crimson at the bottom, the color wicking up through the fine weave to a faint pink just above her knees. The white, so different from her usual bright tunics and dresses, made her look strange and pale, highlighting the dark shadows under her eyes and the traces of blood on her bitten lips. Crowley pressed her own lips together and shook her head. 

“You know I am not,” she said, stepping around a moaning man. The things he had done, the violations he’d enjoyed, were an oil slick across her mind. She thought about putting him out of his misery, but when she glanced down at the sword in her hand her heart began to race and her hand shake. 

She couldn’t do it. 

Crowley continued walking, hoping to put enough distance between herself and the man that she might not hear his pleas for help. It hadn’t been enough time since Golgotha that she could hear a man’s voice begging for help, for mercy, without hearing the voice of the man she’d liked so very much. 

After a moment there was a terrible, wet noise and Boudica reappeared at her side, wiping her sword on her thick cloak. There were a few new specks of blood on her nose, blending into her freckles and Crowley cannot help but think of the cool, red stars she’d so lovingly strewn across the night sky. Boudica should be home with her daughters, gathering them up in her arms and teaching them of the skies, of the land, of their responsibilities to the kingdom they’d just inherited. She should be pressing her lips to the crowns of their heads and smiling, not staring out at Crowley with defiance in her eyes and a snarl set in stone. 

“I know no such thing,” she said. “I know that my rabbit found you and you were kind to it when any other would have killed such an augury. I know you do not move as a human moves and I know, despite those lenses, that you have Gods-touched eyes.” 

Crowley reached up and adjusted her lenses so they sat closer to her eyes, obscuring them further. 

“I am not Andraste,” she said again, then, because the idea of being favored by any deity itched. “Nor am I God-touched, not in a good way.” 

Boudica watched her steadily. They were entering the center of the encampment now and the cries were growing louder. Crowley could sense the beat of flames against the coils of her trueform and knew somewhere Boudica’s troops had set torches to the dry tinder homes. She swallowed back her anger, reminded herself that this was not a civilian encampment, these were Roman troops and they’d done terrible things, would do terrible things if they were allowed to remain. 

“The officers tent is up there.” Boudica swept ahead. “If we cut the head off, the snake cannot harm us any longer.” 

Crowley grimaced at her choice of metaphor but followed none-the-less. They slipped into the tent on light feet, their swords out. Inside was a flurry of movement as the roman commanders pulled on their armor and called for their aides to tell them what was happening. The first fell to Boudica’s blade before he realized what was happening. 

His startled gasps stilled the others, even as Boudica stepped up to the next, a strangely pale man with— 

Crowley slipped between Boudica and the Roman commander, her sword suddenly feeling natural in her hand. She’d never really wanted to turn it on humanity, far preferring to let them be the ones with blood on their hands. But, Aziraphale had always been the one being for whom she would happily make an exception. Boudica, she thought grimly, had been wrong. Killing the inhabitants of this tent _would_ cut the head from the snake, but Crowley would _not_ be responsible for the harm she herself did if that happened. 

“This one’s mine,” she snarled. Boudica’s eyes widened, darting between Crowley and the Roman behind her. Crowley tried to project back the same feeling of righteous fury and need for personal revenge that she’d felt from Boudica and her daughters when she’d first arrived on Iceni lands. After a moment, Boudica nodded and stepped back. 

“Of course, cythraul annwyl[1].” She paused only long enough to reach out and grip Crowley’s hand tightly, her eyes conveying her gratitude for everything the demon had done for her and her family, before sweeping back and holding up the tent flap, her eyes trained on the other other people in the tent. Crowley fought back both the sudden urge to cry and the surety that she would not see the remarkable woman again.

“Thank you,” she whispered and she led the Roman from the tent at the point of her sword. Boudica nodded to her and then the tent flap was falling and she was gone. 

As soon as they were outside she whipped off her own cloak and wrapped it around the Roman, meeting his eyes for the first time. 

“Aziraphale.” She tried to smile but the flames still pressed against them and she couldn’t quite manage it. 

“Crowley,” he returned and her lips twitched then at hearing her name on his tongue. 

“Well,” she stepped close, taking his hand up in her own and pulling him towards of the alleyway. “Come along, they won’t be done here yet for a while and we can get nice and far away before you tell me what the fuck you think you were doing being a _Roman_ here of all places.” 

She bit back how much it ached to see him dressed as those who had hurt Yeshua had been dressed. 

“Quid agis erant cum ea?” Aziraphale said, then grimaced. “Scio te non mihi, sed re vera non scire. Haec tibi concedi sanguinum?”

Eventually, they made it through the alleyways and around the fire that had begun to spread out of control to the fields outside the encampment. As soon as she felt safe Crowley thrust her sword into the dirt, turned, and wrapped her arms around Aziraphale, squeezing tight for a half-second before she stepped back and grinned at him. 

“It’s good to see you again, you Roman bastard,” she infused her voice with everything she hoped he’d hear, all the worry and hurt and happiness at seeing him again and fear of what might have happened had she not been at Boudica’s side. 

“Salve, mea amata,” he returned, his own smile breaking through the harried look he’d worn until then and his voice fond. He glanced around. “Habes cibum? Adfui prandium meum.”

Crowley shrugged helplessly, too overwhelmed by the rapid shift in her morning to attempt to figure out what he was asking and after a moment he laughed, flapping his hands in a gesture that she took to mean she was to forget whatever it was he’d wanted. 

__

* * *

_That’s sad too! Has all of history been sad? I hate that._

_Not all sad, not all happy. S’a mix._

_Crowley._ I _believe the sad times are far outweighed by the pleasant ones._

_But you’ve only told us about sad ones._

_Well, it’s a truth of history, Brian, that extraordinary people are often found in terribly sad circumstances. Even you four—some might argue that it is sad that you had to endure such scary times on behalf of the whole world, that your childhood was marred by fear and danger instead of adults being there to look out for you._

_I don’t think that’s sad, what else were we supposed to do?_

_You could have done nothing at all, but we’d all be rather poorer for it._

_Yeah, sorry about that._

_Can you tell a happy one?_

_Of course._

* * *

_Nok Village in what is now Nigeria, 550 BC_

Bread. Oh, this people understood _bread._ Aziraphale had loved a great many cultures through the years, but there was a special place in his heart for those who valued good food and hearty welcomes and the Nok were exemplary in that regard. He’d arrived less than a full cycle of the moon previously and already felt something akin to home here on the edge of the great desert. 

Aziraphale reached out and took another hearty loaf of bread from the basket at his side. He’d helped make this batch and there was something deeply pleasing about eating food he helped produce. Ahead, on the horizon, he could see the thin orange line of the sand, always shifting with the violent winds that whipped across the waves there, but between it and the small village in which he found himself there was a vast grassland. 

It was dotted with small watering holes, brighter patches of green against the pale yellow grasses that swayed. Those grasses were what he’d spent the day helping to gather. They’d just gone to seed on the far southern side of the village and the humans worked with short blades to cut patches of it down, some doing the cutting and some coming along behind them and gathering up the little bundles of seeds at the top of each stalk. As they worked they’d sung, and Aziraphale smiled at the memory of how he’d been teased for not knowing the words. The songs had a rhythm to them, an up and down cadence that kept everyone’s hands moving together and their hearts light. 

As they worked, the children of the village had darted between adults. The older one entrusted to carry gourds filled with water between thirsty adults and the younger getting under everyone’s feet under the guise of learning about the task. The adults had laughed and cuffed the little ones gently on the back of the head and sent them on to annoy the next adult in line. 

Ufuoande[2], the woman whose family he was staying with, emerged from the courtyard at his back humming one of the songs they’d sung earlier.

“It’s unfair to tease,” he told her, looking up from his work with a smile. 

“We must,” she responded, setting down a new basket of seeds and picking up the carved gourd he’d been slowly filling with ground seeds. Though they’d only gathered them that morning, the hot afternoon sun dried the small seeds rapidly. The flour he made now would be their breakfast in the morning. 

“Oh?” He offered her a chunk of bread which she took, popping it into her mouth and chewing, her eyes closed in pleasure at the taste. 

When she’d chewed and swallowed she looked at him again. 

“Of course, you are strange,” she said, touching the very tips of his hair where it curled at his collar. “And terrible at grinding grain.” 

He made protesting noises but did not otherwise argue, though he hoped he was improving. 

“But, more than that you are new, everyone is teased when they are new. How else will they know the group is happy they are there?” 

His heart felt very full. 

“Well,” he managed to say through a tight throat. “I hope that you all know how happy I am to be here. You’ve been so welcoming.” 

The hand on his neck tightened briefly in an encouraging grip before vanishing. 

“Of course,” she assured him. “The children love your tricks and my woman cannot stop talking about the dyes you brought.” 

Aziraphale tried, and mostly failed, not to preen. He did so love making humans happy in human ways. 

Out on the grasses a dark smudge appeared. 

“That’ll be the caravan,” Ufuoande said. “I should return to the oven, they’ll be hungry and someone ate my first batch.” 

Aziraphale held up another hunk of bread to her without remorse. She laughed and took it and patted his shoulder before retreating to the great oven in the center of the village where they baked bread. 

Aziraphale finished his own snack before taking the mortar and pestle back up, tipping a small handful of seeds into the center divot of the stone and setting to work, grinding them to as smooth a powder as he could manage. As he worked he tried to hum the song they’d sung and watched as the caravan grew ever larger. 

When they reached the edge of the lands the village claimed as their own, the caravan split into many pieces, each trader headed towards the little compound of houses and courtyards their family claimed. One angled towards Aziraphale and he paused in his work. Ufuoande and her wife were the only adults capable of trading in the household and neither had wanted to go on this trip, who—?

A smile crossed his face before he schooled it into a stern look because the light had just hit the trader at the right angle and he could see the way the sunset lit pale skin orange, the way it set already flaming hair ablaze. 

“Crawly,” he greeted as calmly as he could when the demon was close enough. 

Crawly looked up from the ground and something odd happened. He’d looked tired, worn down by the journey, but when his eyes met Azirpahale’s he… changed. He stood straighter, hefting the packs slung over his shoulders higher even as a broad smile crossed his face. He raised one hand and said something and not even Aziraphale’s furrowed brow seemed to dampen his excitement. 

He practically bounced across the space between them, tossing down the packs and stealing the last bit of bread from Azirpahale’s knee.

“Now, see here!” Azirpahale protested, but he was smiling himself now and knew he’d not be taken seriously. 

Crawly took a bite of the bread and gestured to the mortar and pestle in Aziraphale hands, clearly indicating he should go about his business. Then, oddly, he began talking. Aziraphale stared, wide-eyed, as Crawly began to chatter away, his voice bright and cheerful and Aziraphale found himself enraptured by the flow of it, for all that he couldn’t understand a single word. 

By the time Ufuoande returned and asked who his friend was Aziraphale had even found himself laughing at some of the faces Crawly pulled as he told his tale and he was happy to sit back and watch as Ufuoande invited the demon to join them for dinner. 

__

* * *

_See? There are happy times, too. It’s not all doom and gloom and wahh-its-the-end-of-days and oh look there goes the last unicorn and all that._

_Unicor—_

_Nope, no, we don’t have time for all that!_

_Crowley, are you still embarrassed about that? I told you it was a perfectly innocent—_

_No time! Who’s next? You! Firstname_ [3] _Wensleydale, who do you want to hear about?_

_Actually, I would be very happy to hear about the wayfinders? If either of you met any of them?_

_Oh!_

_Ugh._

_Now, Crowley don’t be that way, it’s not their fault you managed to be sick every—_

_Just tell the story, angel._

__

* * *

Open Ocean between Fiji and Tonga, 923 BC 

Crawly had not been able to stop throwing up since he first stepped onto the boat. He reflected, more than a little bitterly, that if one did not eat or drink and possessed the ability to miracle one’s physical form into whatever shape one wished, including without a stomach, then one should not have to endure this interminable nausea. The empty place where his stomach had been did not seem to agree with him as it clenched tightly again, sending him leaning further out over the water. 

There was a hand on his back, hesitantly prodding at his spine in what he thought was probably meant to be comfort. 

The rub of it all was that he was comforted, though he didn’t think anyone a bit less pathetic than himself would be. It was just, well, he liked being— No, that was too far. He valued the time— Ugh. Too formal _._

He liked Aziraphale and the idea that that angel might want to comfort him, no matter that it was clearly out of obligation and not true desire, warmed him. 

He filed the feeling away under “yet another reason for Dagon to flay me alive if I’m not careful” and turned back to trying not to topple over the edge. 

“Why are we here? No wait, why the fuck am I here, I assume you’ve some mission of goodwill or—” He cut himself off and gripping the railing tighter as another wave hit him. “This is part of the Fall isn’t it? That’s the only explanation. You were eating up a storm and you’re fine, all I had was—” 

Oh, that was a mistake, don't think about specific foods. 

The humans on the boat around them suddenly began to make a lot more noise, shouting excitedly to each other and scrambling towards the front of the large flat platform that comprised the majority of the craft. Aziraphale’s hand left his back and, unsure of his own stability without that safety net, Crawly allowed himself to topple back and to the side, securely away from the edge. 

Azirpahale gave him a passing glance, nodding once when he saw that Crawly hadn’t gone overboard, before crossing the deck to where Nekamahea stood. They made a handsome pair, Crawly thought, their broad shoulders both bared to the sunlight, Aziraphale’s darker than Crawly had ever seen. 

Crawly’s corporation seemed to prefer burning to something approaching the color of his hair, peeling in utterly disgusting ways that reminded him far too strongly of shedding, and then beginning the entire process again. That combined with the inescapable nausea was enough to make him vow never to travel the open ocean again, no matter what assignment Hastur gave him. 

The humans would spread discord to new lands just fine on their own without him being utterly miserable. 

Nekamahea laughed at something Aziraphale said, clapping one massive hand down on his shoulders. 

“Crawly!” he called. “Come stand, get those sea legs under yourself and see what we’ve spotted.” 

Crawly could see Azirpahale trying to hide a smile behind his hand and gave in to the urge to make a face at him as he stood and staggered his way across the deck, legs more wobbly than even his usual swager. When he finally reached them, Aziraphale glanced at him and said something to Nekamahea, eliciting a laugh from the man. Crawly pretended to understand and pulled another face in response. 

“What’ve you spotted?” he muttered, turning away from the angel. 

Nekamahea leaned down so his eyes were level with Crawly’s and raised one arm, pointing out at the horizon. Crawly followed his gaze, squinting into the harsh light reflected from the waves. 

He didn’t like the ocean, hadn’t since— 

He didn’t like the ocean. The salt smell itched and it made him want to grab the humans and run and also to scream at God and never stop. The light from the waves drove those feelings deep, deep, and he couldn’t seem to look past it to see what Nekamahea was pointing to.

“I don’t—” 

He froze, startled when Aziraphale’s hand entered his field of view, moving until it was perfectly positioned to block the worst of the glare. He looked to Aziraphale in shock, but the angel was looking out at the waves with a bland look on his face. 

With the protection from the sun he was able to make out a small, sark smudge on the horizon. His breath caught in his throat. 

“Land?” he whispered. Nekamahea jerked his head in agreement. 

“New land.” 

Aziraphale held his hand there, blocking the sun, until Crawly turned away from the entrancing sight. 

__

* * *

_I suppose that brings us to you, Mr. Young._

_… Ah, it’s… it’s okay. We don’t have to do mine. I asked for you to tell us a story in the first place so this all counts as…_

_None of that now. Surely there’s someone you’re interested in? Or if not someone, someplace?_

_...._

_...no. There isn’t. Stop squirming Dog, you’re fine._

_…_

_Ah, bless it. You want to know about him, don’t you?_

_…_

_Is that okay? I don’t want to be… I dunno… I’m not asking as like, I don’t know._

_Yeah, it’s okay. He’d’ve liked you, I think._

_You knew him?_

_Of course we did. Crowley was meant to tempt him and I was meant to make sure he was safe._

_Can you… what was he like as a kid? Not like a little one. Ya know, like… us. Did he have any pets? Would he have liked Dog?_

_Kid, he, erg, look he loved everyone because he had to, yeah? But, he didn’t like a lot of people. When I say he would have liked you I mean it. The five of you would have raised Holy Hell._

_You think so?_

_Is this the face of a demon who would lie to you?_

_I— I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer that._

_Cheeky._

__

* * *

_Nazareth in Galilee, 2 AD_

Cheeky, that was the word Crawly had been searching for. He reached down and tweaked the Son of God’s nose, eliciting an outraged noise followed immediately by a giggle as Crawly stepped to the side, allowing the gaggle of other children to sweep around them. They pulled Yeshua along, pausing only briefly to reshuffle so that little Simon could take Yeshua’s hand. The pair weren’t often separated these days and Simon was too little to play with the other children if Yeshua wasn’t with him. 

“Starting your work early again, I see.” 

Crawly looked away from the children to see Yôsēp̄ standing at the entrance to the little shed where he ran his carpentry business. The young father wore an open smile and carried a hefty sack from which delectable aromas drifted. When he spotted Crawly’s gaze his smile turned a bit devious. 

“Maryam[4] says you’re allowed as much charoset[5] as you want, on one condition.”

The hand that had begun to creep towards the bag froze in midair. 

“Yôsēp̄,” he whispered, “You know I can’t- You know I have to—”

“Oh, no,” he laughed. “Of course you’re going to tempt him. That’s your job and it's our job to raise him well enough that he’s untemptable.” 

Crawly blinked, unsure what else Maryam and Yôsēp̄ could want from him. 

“You know things, yes?” Yôsēp̄ asked. “About other places and people?” 

Crawly sniffed, offended despite his caution that they would question his knowledge. “Obviously.” 

“When you tempt him, show him those places? Tell him about those people?” 

Crawly froze in place, startled. “What?” 

“We don’t know his destiny or what he’s meant to do, only that it’s grander than anything we can comprehend.” The sound of playing children grew louder as the long arc of their game drew them back around the near side of the small cluster of houses. “But, unless I miss the mark, it’s not meant for only people from here and now.” 

Crawly shook his head. “I don’t know either, the lower downs don't tell me anything. Just to tempt him when the time is right.” 

He watched as Yeshua, all of six years old, paused in the raucous game to make sure that Simon was still by his side and having fun. Crawly’s chest felt tight. 

“But, yes, they dont pull out all the stops for local warlords and the like.” 

Yeshua scoops Simon up and the two of them take off, chasing down a close group of three, all five children shrieking their delight. 

“I show him all the Kingdoms of the world, and you and Maryam keep me in charoset?” 

Yôsēp̄ nodded and, slowly, Crawly’s smile grew to match his. 

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” he said, holding out a hand. “No, no need to shake. Head office doesn’t need to know about this little deal with the devil.” 

So, they sealed it with a shared meal, interpreted only by the pack of children descending upon them for their afternoon snack. 

* * *

_Nazareth in Galilee, 7 AD_

“I hate them!” The cry echoed through the alleyways, cracking halfway through, as all adolescents did when they were genuinely upset. Concerned, Aziraphale closed his eyes and cast out his awareness only to immediately yank it back as close to himself as he could when it brushed up against the vastness of Yeshua’s aura. He hurried towards the source, concerned at anything that could make the normally placid child so upset. 

When he rounded the corner he paused, startled to see that Yeshua was not alone. He paced back and forth in the little stone courtyard outside his parents’ house, clearly fuming, while Crawly sat on the stone wall and watched with his legs curled beneath him. 

Even as he watched, Yeshua kicked at the stone wall in front of him and then twisted away, snarling when it hurt his sandaled foot. Crawly did not smile, but there was a fond look on his face that Aziraphale was still unused to seeing, even after the last half decade of seeing each other in passing as they each worked to fulfill their employer’s desires. Crawly spoke, though he was still too far away for Azirpahale to make out the incomprehensible words. 

Yeshua replied, his voice lower now. He turned to begin another circuit of the courtyard. Aziraphale settled back, content to watch from a distance. In the early days he’d worried constantly what Crawly was telling the boy, but now it didn’t seem so important. Yeshua was eleven and clearly on the right path, no matter what adolescent rage he was currently experiencing. After a few minutes had passed Crawly looked up and seemingly spotted Aziraphale for the first time, a wry smile curled his lips and he raised one hand, calling Aziraphale over. 

Aziraphale thought about it, considered how it would feel to sit there and try to talk with the Son of God between them, the only comprehensible thing about the interaction, thought about the eager way Crawly would look to him, and the way his voice would fill the air, beautiful and wry and wonderful in ways Aziraphale could not define. 

He did not think he could stand to participate in that conversation just then. So, instead of accepting the invitation, he shook his head lightly and tried to ignore the obviously crestfallen look on Crawly’s face. 

He needed to report to Gabriel anyway, no time to consort with demons. 

* * *

“Is he your friend?” 

Crawly grimaced. His instinctive answer was ‘yes, of course’ because, well, Azirpahale was his only friend. But, he was fairly sure that friendship had to run both directions and knew that Aziraphale did not feel the same way. So, instead he could only shrug and say, “Adversary is more accurate.” 

Yeshua considered this. His own rage had petered to nothing almost as quickly as it had arisen, tempered by the pain of his outburst and the opportunity to rant without feeling judged. Crawly was an expert in sins and knew that in order to stoke wrath one need only bottle rage for too long. He probably should have worked to keep Yeshua’s stoppered, but he just couldn’t be bothered today. Not when he had other, far more important things, on his mind. 

Yeshua huffed and threw himself down on the ground, fiddling with a tiny sprig of grass that was growing through the gap in the stones. He was clearly worn out from his outburst. 

“Thank you for listening to me,” he said, allowing himself to fall back against the packed earth. Crawly pulled his legs in tighter, tucking them completely under his robes and wrapping his arms around them. 

“Of course,” he said. “How can I tempt you to the more fun side of things if I dont know your weak places?” 

Yeshua laughed, the threat old and worn at this point, but today Crawly was having none of it. 

“Why don't you hate me?” he asked before he could think his way into a less blunt way of asking the question. “You know what I am. No, no, you _sense_ what I am. How can you be so comfortable around me feeling _that.”_

Yeshua did not raise his head from the soil. Instead, he plucked the blade of grass and balanced it on the tip of his nose, eyes going just a little bit crossed as he tried to watch it. His breath rocked the tiny plant back and forth, threatening to send it tumbling away from him. 

“Of course I can feel you,” Yeshua said. “I can feel everyone.” 

“I’m not like everyone else,” Crawly snapped out. “I’m a demon, I’m disgusting and wrong and you know it. I know you do.” 

Yeshua shrugged, an odd gesture in the dirt but somehow entirely natural on him. 

“No, it doesn’t feel _good_ ,” he said and, oh, that hurt Crawly because he was just now realizing he’d sort of hoped Yeshua would say he was wrong, that his presence wasn’t entirely unbearable. No wonder Aziraphale hadn’t wanted to stay.

“Right,” he muttered, uncurling his legs to stand. “I’ll just go. Tempt yourself for a few years, yeah? I’ll be back when you’re—”

Yeshua blew upward, deliberately sending the blade of grass tumbling through the air. Crawly watched it fall, feeling vaguely ill. 

“Don’t leave,” he said. “It’s not… it’s a nasty feeling, but not a bad one?”

Crawly paused, unsure what that meant. In his experience nasty feelings were bad feelings. Why wouldn’t they be?

“I don’t—” 

Yeshua gestured widely as he spoke, arms flung out to each side. “It’s like the same feeling I get when I see a ram and I want to yank its tail to see if I can make it to the stables before it gets me.” 

That startled a laugh from Crawly. Yeshua leaned up so he was propped on one elbow, a loose grin on his face. 

“What? It’s true!” 

After a few minutes Crawly managed to gather himself back from the brink of madness that the idea of Aziraphale reporting to Gabriel that the Christchild had been killed teasing a ram had him teetering upon. 

“First of all, do not do that while I’m responsible. Your mother would never feed me again and I happen to like her cooking.” 

Yeshua laughed and nodded. 

“Deal,” he said, eyes sparkling with the knowledge of exactly what that word meant. Crawly had to swallow past the lump in his throat. 

“Second of all,” he paused to try and formulate what exactly it was he wanted to say, but in the end could only come up with. “That’s awfully human of you.” 

“Well,” Yeshua flopped back into the dust. “That’s because I am. That’s what everyone keeps telling me anyway. I hope they’re right, I like being a human.” 

Crawly found he didn’t have the words to respond to that because he was suddenly caught up in the memory of Eve, her fingers wrapped around the apple, the light of knowledge in her eyes and the surety that she’d made the right decision. Of the human’s pride at Babel and their fear afterward, of the hundreds, thousands he’d tempted to their doom and yet they still treated him so well. 

“Yeah, me too,” Crawly whispered. Then, before he could lose his nerve he said, “I know you don’t talk to the Big Lady, but can I ask a question?” 

“That’s what you do isn’t it?” he said it in the all-too-knowing way he sometimes had that sent a shiver down the stack of bones that approximated Crawly’s spine. 

“Er, yeah.” 

Yeshua gestured something that Crawly thought probably meant well-there-you-go and Crawly tried to take a few deep breaths to calm himself. This wasn’t like asking Her questions. It couldn’t be. 

“Do you think if I changed my name, Aziraphale would be able to understand the new one?” 

* * *

Footnotes

1. This is modern Welsh and means "beloved demon/devil"., I am not an expert in Welsh and what little information on reconstructions I could find was not useful for this bit. So, no, Boudica would not have spoken Welsh, BUT of the languages currently spoken Welsh is the most conservative (it has the most similarities to ancient forms) and is passably similar to what she would have used↩

2. Nothing is known of the Nok language today (weeps). Since we cannot know what people's names were like I used common name formation patterns from Nigeria to make names that (hopefully) sound just slightly off from modern.↩

3. Note, Crowley was very aware of Wensleydale's first name. He was. He just couldn't remember it just then and staunchly refused to call him 'young man'.↩

4. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus would have spoken Aramaic. Their names in this section (and in reference in the rest of the fic) will therefore be as close to the Aramaic version as the letters at my disposal will allow. Therefore; Mary is Maryam, Joseph is Yôsēp̄, and Jesus is Yeshua.↩

5. Commonly eaten at Passover Seder, Charoset (חֲרֽוֹסֶת (ḥărōset) in Hebrew, sometimes also called halegh, esp. in the Middle East) is a sticky-sweet paste for which the recipe can vary greatly. It's common to find apples, figs, pomegranates, dates, almonds, and/or walnuts along with honey and cinnamon or saffron. It is Incredibly Tasty.↩

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boudica section summary: Boudica and Crowley are attacking a Roman camp. Boudica is furious and hurt and fights without mercy, though Crowley is more hesitant in general, she is also hurting from Jesus' death and wants revenge on Rome. They travel through the camp until they reach an officer's tent where they discover Aziraphale among the Roman soldiers. Crowley implies that Azirpahale has personally wronged her and that she wants revenge, thus saving him from Boudica's blade. They leave the tent together as Boudica bids Crowley a fond farewell. [return to text]


	6. Valdali Murum Iterum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Rome. The Eternal City. The Bathhouses. The Vandals. The- Wait, what was that last one?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> History says the 455 Sack of Rome was relatively chill for being a "sack", I'm taking a few liberties with what that might mean and trying to emphasize how people might react to the threat of one having experienced much worse incidents in the past. 
> 
> Warnings:  
> \- Explicit discussion of deadnames, including the canonical level use of a deadname by others (both accidentally and purposefully). 
> 
> \- I'm going to add a warning for blood and violence/injury/death to this chapter. In particular, Crowley's POV section after leaving Aziraphale's chambers in Rome. Detailed warning in the endnotes.
> 
> ALSO All the translations this chapter are from Latin, so I'm not going to list "Latin" every time haha. My deepest apologies to any classicists in the audience. I'm far more adept at, uh, every other dead language. I did my best haha. I also translated all the lines in this chapter, this will be the only chapter where that happens. There were just a lot and I know that can be overwhelming to read. So! if you want the True Experience, skip this chapter's footnotes! <3

_Did he?_

_Did he what?_

_Crowley don’t be obtuse. You know perfectly well what he’s asking._

_Ugh, yes fine. None of you know how to let the suspense build. Storytelling, a lost art I tell you. Now, Roscio was a storyteller. Could have you on the edge of your seat faster than you can say, er, something. Not sure what. ‘Ziraphale, what’s that phrase? You know the one I mean._

_I’m certain I do not._

_Fine, be that way you blessed bit— angel. Point is they’re wanting spoilers and that’s not on._

_Actually, Mr. Crowley, I don’t think we want spoilers or anything like that. It’s just, that other name was kind of like a deadname, right?_

_Yeah, like you didn’t feel right using it?_

_But, not how I feel using Pippin, that’s just a dumb name but it doesn’t hurt me. The other name hurt you, right?_

_Hnf, er, I— I mean, I suppose. It- it wasn’t_ me _. Not really. I didn’t choose it. Not that you have to choose your name for it to fit, I don’t mean to say- erk. A little help here, angel?_

_I’m afraid I cannot speak for you here, my dear. My experience with such things is all secondhand._

_Our friend Greasy didn’t like their first name, they don’t know what they want the new one to be yet, but we know better than to use the old one. My mom says that’s something only old white men do and we don’t want to be old white men._

_Quite right._

_Yeah. Also, uh, yeah. I suppose that’s a good way to think about my second name. And no, he didn’t understand the first time I tried to tell him._

_I feel quite awful about it now._

_Nah, wasn’t your fault. Besides, we were a little distracted what with the cross and all. I tried again a few years later though and he got it._

* * *

_Roma, Romani Imperii Occidentis, 455 Anno Domini_

Aziraphale was, if he was being honest, not a fan of the current century. Oh, Rome was still Rome. But, it all seemed rather performative now. He would never say it in Heaven, for fear that the wrong conclusions would be drawn, but he missed the days before Rome was Christian.

Of course, he’d worked even then to help people find the right path and live in a way that would ensure they were free to enjoy eternal peace after their death. In those days, he’d been free to do so in a more holistic way. Then, he’d been able to encourage them to give to their neighbors and look out for the vulnerable without having to couch it in dogma or tell them they had to trust in the word of other humans to find the path to salvation.

Worse than that was all the pomp and circumstance he suddenly discovered humans were capable of and seemed to delight in. Faith had never been simple; not the way it was for angels who needed nothing to worship, save their thoughts and their connection to the Almighty. Humans liked ritual and tradition, they liked to have special places and words they used. Over time Aziraphale had discovered he liked the ways that the words would take on deeper meaning the more they were repeated, gathering up all the hopes and dreams and determination of generations after generations of humans.

All that was nice.

The issue, Aziraphale thought, was when some humans tried to enforce what words others used. It robbed them of all meaning if there was no choice. How could the humans ever truly prove themselves worthy of Heaven if they weren’t the agents of their own fates?

That was the core of his trouble with Rome as it existed now. The opulence and the way the various emperors tried to force their beliefs on others rankled, and left him with thoughts that would seem less out of place coming from Crawly’s mouth than rattling about his mind. He’d not seen the demon for a few years and (obviously) had not spoken for so very much longer, but the invectives hurled at Babel lingered.

He’d never meant to imply that the humans were lesser or that they didn’t deserve the chances they were given. He just wanted to be… he wanted to be Good. But he was slowly beginning to worry that being Good wasn’t the same thing as being a good person and he was afraid of what that meant about him, of what it meant about the whole of the Heavenly Host, about the humans that so venerated them. Yeshua had been Good and the very humans in whose city he now stood had killed him for it and Heaven had _wanted_ that to happen. 

Could that… Could that really be what a good person did? When plagued by these sorts of thoughts, Aziraphale often found his mind turning to the same question, the one that underlay all others; is this what Crowley would have done? 

He hated that question, hated that it even occurred to him to ask and hated that so often the answer was ‘no’ paired with the surety that Crowley would not take that course because he would have found a way around it or avoided it altogether. Crowley might be a demon, might be damned and cast out for his sins by their God, but more and more often Aziraphale was sure that he was the better person of the two of them. He did not like that feeling any more than he liked the question that accompanied it. 

Aziraphale sighed and set his cup aside, the quiet clink of clay on marble echoing through the empty air around him. Rome always bustled, that had not changed for all that her splendor was nothing more than faded ink in worn cloth these days, but it seemed those sounds never quite reached his chambers. He could spend hours standing at the railing and looking out, arms crossed in front of his chest and brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to hear the soul of the city he’d so loved sing out once more, and hear nothing. 

Rome was quiet now, a becalmed sea before a roiling storm but he could not see from whence the clouds might come, no matter how he searched. 

The distant, tinny sound of church bells reached him and for a brief moment, Aziraphale could pretend all was as it had been the last time he spent any time in Rome. 

* * *

_Roma, Imperii Romani, 41 Anno Domini_

“"Da mihi bibere[1].” Aziraphale’s hand froze in the air over his game, _digitus salutaris_ hovering over the white marble, just barely brushing the cool stone. The room was crowded, the people raucous, but there was nothing in the world that could prevent him from recognizing that voice. Something in his chest unfurled and he took a deep breath. He didn’t recognize the feeling, wasn’t sure he’d ever felt it before, but it was… pleasant. Far more so than he’d ever expected to feel around any of Lucifer’s ilk. He canted his head to the side, so he could look towards the speaker without being too obvious. 

The thing in his chest spread further, curling thread-thin tendrils around all the little arteries and tendons and bits he didn’t know how to identify. Crawly looked… Well, he looked odd. He’d not been in the city long, that much was immediately clear by the odd cut of his toga and the laurel wreath he wore without cause. Aziraphale’s eyes skimmed across those details, skipping and dancing around the perfect golden armband (a snake because the demon was nothing if not predictable in at least one way) and up the line of his throat. 

His visible throat. 

Aziraphale swallowed, feeling suddenly very parched. 

The demon took a long draw of the drink he’d been given, the knot in his throat bobbing and Aziraphale decided he couldn’t stand the way his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth any longer. He stood, carefully sliding from the bench, and made his way across the crowded bar, his game abandoned behind him. 

“Still a demon then?” he asked without thinking and immediately winced, his embarrassment twofold. Of _course_ Crawly was still a demon, now that he knew to look for it, Azirpahale could feel the oil slick presence of a Fallen at the edges of his perception. Moreover, what was the point in speaking at all when he’d not be understood? 

He realized through his embarrassment as Crawly turned to raise one vaguely annoyed eyebrow at him, that he’d hoped Yeshua’s sacrifice might redeem them in the Eyes of the Lord. Clearly, since he’d not understood Crawly just then, that wasn’t the case. He swallowed back the bitter disappointment that rose in him, telling himself that it was inappropriate anyway. His ability to understand had been taken from him as punishment for his fraternization with the demon in Babel and it was unfair to expect that that would have changed so easily. 

Especially when, as evidenced by the way he sought out conversation, he’d not yet learned his lesson. 

“Salve[2],” Crawly muttered, drinking deeply from his cup and then surfacing with a grimace and a glare at the barkeep’s back.

“Quod est foedum potum[3],” he said, sticking out his tongue in a way that Aziraphale absolutely did not find endearing.

Why did he continue to speak? Aziraphale wondered. Was he not embarrassed? Each slip ate at Aziraphale. It had been so many years, and yet he still tried and he still failed and it was embarrassing, shameful, to not have learned yet. How could Crawly be so brazenly… well, Aziraphale wasn’t sure _what_ but he knew that hearing Crawly speak simultaneously made him want to run very, very far away and linger at his side, drinking in the incomprehensible mess of syllables. 

The demon drained his mug, slapped down an aureus[4], and stood, waving away the barkeep’s startled gratitude. 

“Please, domine! You must at least take some bread.” 

Aziraphale watched as Crawly eyed first her and then the cloth wrapped loaf of bread she held out. His mouth was twisted in a put-upon expression, but, after a quick look at Aziraphale he sighed gustily and took the bread. 

“Spero,” he said, waggling one finger dramatically in her direction, “meliorem te panis gustibus tua ebrietate[5].”

Then he turned on one sandaled heel and slunk from the bar, pausing only to call back over his shoulder, “Tu venturus est, angelus[6]?”

Aziraphale hesitated, it was clear he was being asked to accompany the demon and he _had_ been the one to initiate their conversation in the first place. But, it felt like a far cry between sitting in companionable silence in a tavern and actually walking to another location together. To say nothing of how the way Crawly looked over his shoulder reminded him of their first walk together, through the crowded streets of Babel. Crawly was in the doorway now, under the lintel where Aziraphale could still see the scars from a recently removed entreaty to a god the people here weren’t sure they believed in anymore. The light from the late afternoon sunshine lit his close-cropped curls in living-ember red even as it washed the marble walls behind him in oranges and yellows. He was a being of flame and heat and he was holding a wrapped loaf of bread given to him because he’d overpaid for his beer with nary an ulterior motive. 

Aziraphale felt his hands begin to tremble. His mouth was still dry, he realized, he’d not slaked that thirst. Crawly tilted his head and still Aziraphale hesitated. Remaining here was the Right thing to do, he could purchase a drink and return to his game and Crawly could leave and they would both be better for not having tempted fate by accompanying each other. 

Crawly stepped back towards him, out of the light and suddenly he was just himself again, the terrifying beauty once more banked behind unfashionable robes and strange dark lenses and the deep shadows at the corners of his mouth. 

“Aziraphale?” he asked very softly, barely audible over the continued din of the crowd and the rattle of a cart passing by outside. 

Strangely, it was hearing his name that jolted Azirpahale from his sudden paralysis. He straightened, not even having realized he’d begun to curl in on himself and forced his hands away from where they wanted to fidget with the folds of his _toga candida_. He nodded silently and with a murmured _gratias_ to the barkeep he followed Crawly from the tavern. 

Once outside Crawly grinned at him, his previous foul mood seemingly burned away by the sunset. 

“Scio enim quod perfectum est manducare[7],” Crawly said, jerking one thumb back over his shoulder. The lenses he wore were too small to entirely hide his eyes, Aziraphale realized as he noticed the corners crinkle in a smile that didn’t quite manage to curl his lips.

Aziraphale opened his mouth and then closed it again, burning embarrassment at the idea of being so blatantly incoherent staying his tongue. He thought of his last reports to Heaven, of the way his words had been twisted and his meaning lost. 

He was so _tired_ of not being understood. 

Crawly waited, watching him without judgment until finally, Aziraphale nodded. 

* * *

They ended up in a small private room at one of the more out of the way bathhouses in the city. Aziraphale had never visited it before, preferring the large one near Petronius’ new restaurant if only because it meant he was that much closer to delicious treats when the whim struck. But, it seemed this was Crawly’s usual haunt because the attendants greeted him with broad smiles, asking if he would like his ‘usual’. Aziraphale assumed that Crawly responded positively as they were quickly ushered into the steam-filled room. 

As soon as the door swung shut behind them Crawly set the bread down and began to remove his clothing. 

“Oh!” Aziraphale started to turn away and then paused, wondering where that impulse had come from. They weren’t human and, even if they were, there was nothing unusual about the human form. Men of this time period were comfortable with their bodies and they were both currently male presenting. In leaving the tavern with the demon, Aziraphale knew he had tacitly agreed to join Crawly in whatever it was he had planned. And this was such a normal thing. Bread and a bath and nothing at all that might explain why he suddenly felt as if all the skin on his body was covered in small, stinging bugs. 

At his small exclamation, Crawly paused halfway through sliding a thin snake wrought in silver down his left arm. He glanced at Aziraphale and then himself and then the bath. Then, a rueful expression crossed his face and he slid the armband back up into place. He crooked one finger at Aziraphale and took a few steps across the small space between the wall and the water. Aziraphale followed, cautious but curious all the same. Once at the wall, Crawly reached out and detached a section, pulling it out to reveal a beautifully worked stone screen, the material so thin that faint shadows of Crowley’s hand could be seen through it. He stretched it across the space until there was a narrow area behind it, perhaps a single pace wide and two long where it led down to the water. 

When Aziraphale turned to look back at Crawly, the demon was tearing the bread into large chunks and setting them on a plate with a small raised portion in the center. When he breathed in, Aziraphale could smell the olive oil and fresh herbs. Crawly glanced up at him and flapped one hand towards the privacy screen in a clear directive to hurry up. 

The stinging insects subsided the moment Aziraphale stepped behind the divider. He undressed quickly, carefully folding his toga and setting it as far from the edge of the pool as possible. He heard the clink of clay on stone and then a quiet splash before ripples reached the part of the pool he could see. Still feeling strangely hesitant, he crept to the edge of the screen and peered around it. 

Crawly was in the water, clearly nude though the ripples obscured anything below his collarbones, he had one arm resting on the side of the pool, languidly trailing a few fingers across the surface and sending more ripples out in a continuous eddy. His head was tilted back and his eyes closed, a soft smile curling his lips. 

Aziraphale took a deep breath and nodded once, then again. Then, before he could hesitate any longer he lowered himself into the water, sighing involuntarily as the heat stole away any remaining tension from his limbs. 

Crawly still did not look at him, even when Aziraphale had settled into a seat a respectable distance from him and it slowly dawned on him that the demon was not about to act without his permission. That knowledge chased away the last of his discomfort and he reached out, lightly touching the hand that still danced along the surface of the water. Crawly did not stop making the ripples, but he did crack first one eye, then the other open when he saw Aziraphaale smiling at him. 

“Esne bene[8]?” he asked quietly but Aziraphale could only shrug helplessly in response. Crawly’s smile turned a bit rueful and he nodded. “Bene es[9].”

He raised his unoccupied hand, snapped once, and then the room _changed._ What had been walls revealed themselves to be more screens as they folded back and away. The last of the day’s sun lanced across them and reflecting off the marble until the entire room was ablaze. Through the now open walls Aziraphale could see the whole of Rome laid out beneath them, a tangled mess of humanity and noise made calm by distance. 

“It’s beautiful,” he whispered before biting back all the other things he wanted to say. 

“Optimus in civitate[10],” Crawly said quietly after a few awestruck moments had passed. When Aziraphale turned back to him he was sliding the plate with the bread and olive oil closer. 

Aziraphale nodded his gratitude. He took up a hunk of bread and tore off a smaller piece to dip. The oil was rich and just wild enough in flavor for him to know it came from the south, it sank into all the nooks and crannies in the bread and then burst on his tongue in a riot of flavor. He could not stop the small moan that escaped him. Luckily it seemed Crawly felt the same because he was smiling as he bit into his own piece. 

They ate in companionable silence as they watched the sunset. By the time the last of the oranges had faded to red and then to the darkest blues the bread was gone and with it, any hesitation Aziraphale had about his companion. In between bites Crawly had begun to speak, just as he did on the sporadic other occasions they spent any length of time around each other, narrating tales that made sense only to him and gesticulating wildly, his voice expressive and warm as it tripped from sardonic to genuine and back again. 

Aziraphale ached to know the content of those stories even as he found that his own words seemed to shrivel away, their roots curling tighter and tighter until there was nothing left at all. 

* * *

It was full dark when the attendants brought them an amphora and cups along with a rich spread of meats, cheeses, and fruit. Aziraphale watched in silence as Crawly paused in his story to turn to thanking them, sentences much longer than simple gratitude. 

“No, she’s still not walking,” the first attendant responded with a laugh. The second elbowed him. 

“And she won’t if this one doesn’t remember he’s not supposed to carry her everywhere.” 

Crawly barked a laugh of his own and said something that made the first blush violently red before the two beat a quick retreat. Then, he waited until the door once again swung shut to pile a plate high with the offerings before setting it in front of Aziraphale. 

As soon as Aziraphale had taken a long drink of the wine, Crawly spoke again, but this time there was something different in his voice, something that captured Aziraphale’s attention. 

“Aziraphale,” he said and then stopped, seemingly gathering himself. He turned in the water so that he faced Aziraphale fully. In this light, his hair was little more than short tendrils of the dark space between the stars, his eyes dying giants in their last phase. The stars were reflected on the water in impossibly perfect pinpricks of light and when Crawly moved he was a pale streak cutting through them, a comet with frozen flame shearing out behind it and sending the stars swirling in a rippling dance. A miniature of their much larger movements but no less awe-inspiring. 

Not for the first time, Aziraphale wondered what Crawly had looked like as an angel. 

“Crawly,” he finally managed to respond. 

But, Crawly shook his head. He raised one hand from the water and reached out, trailing dripping starlight behind him, to press it to the center of Aziraphale’s chest. Aziraphale sucked in a sharp breath, startled without cause by how _warm_ Crawly was. 

“Aziraphale,” Crawly said again, tapping Aziraphale’s chest. Then, the brought the hand back to himself and said, “Crawly.” 

Despite the low light, Aziraphale couldn’t look away from Crawly’s face. His expression was tight, held in perfect control, and yet there was something terrible and hurting in his eyes when he said his own name. Cautiously, Aziraphale nodded. 

“Aziraphale and Crawly,” he repeated gesturing to each of them in turn. 

Crawly reached out, once more touching Aziraphale’s chest. The same spot. The same firebrand touch. 

“Aziraphale,” he said. When he took his hand away, Aziraphale’s chest ached with the chill. “Crawly.” This time it was slightly different, the middle bit just a little off from how Aziraphale thought it was meant to be said. He was briefly blindingly afraid that he’d been mispronouncing it all these years.

Slowly, cautiously Aziraphale repeated the pronunciation. A little bit of the awful look faded from Crawly’s gaze as he nodded. 

Another touch to Aziraphale’s chest, another repetition of his name and then the hand crossing the space between them to Crawly’s chest, resting just above his heart. 

“Cræwly,” he said. Aziraphale repeated it dutifully. 

Then, more different still, “Crœwly.” 

Another round of reaching out, of touching, of repetition and then, “Crœwley.” 

Aziraphale said it and the tension was nearly entirely gone now. The demon looked exhausted but pleased. Determined to see whatever this was through. 

“Crowley,” he said and as he spoke Azirphale could see the stars shiver around him. He was trembling, despite the heat that still radiated from the water.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said and was rewarded with a barked laugh and a sharp nod. Suddenly sure that he knew what had just happened, Aziraphale copied the pattern he’d seen so many times now. First, he touched his own chest and said, “Aziraphale.” Then, he crossed the space between them and, meeting wide yellow eyes said, “Crowley?” 

The demon surged across the space between them, wrapping Aziraphale in a tight embrace before he could quite register what was happening. The entire universe narrowed to the places where their skin pressed together; Crowley’s chest to his, his arms encircling Aziraphale and holding him tight, their foreheads touching, breath mingling, Azirpahale could feel the way Crowley’s heart raced and could taste the wine on his exhale. If either of them shifted he was sure he’d feel far more. 

“Crowley,” he said again for want of any other thought. 

Then, he blinked and the moment was over. Crowley was once again seated just at the edge of his reach. 

* * *

_Roma, Romani Imperii Occidentis, 455 Anno Domini_

The church bells ceased their ringing, though Aziraphale could still feel the divine shockwaves that radiated from them through the fervor of the people. They were afraid, anticipating the same storm as he, and their fear sent them scurrying to their God. He wished it did not gall him so, to see people who normally held no more faith than that which would advance their social position turn to prayer in their hour of need. If he were a good angel he’d be happy for any reason they might pray. 

More and more he was sure he wasn’t a very good angel. 

He’d been in the city for a few decades now and for all her wonders, for all the Good work he was doing, there is a little piece of Aziraphale that complains. Wasn’t it more fun before? It asked him. Or even, after Yeshua, that night in the bath— 

He never entertained those thoughts long. He knew the consequences of not being Good, his inability to speak with Crowley was proof enough of those. The Lord was merciful in Her Judgement of him then. His fear of what the next punishment might have been far exceeded his desire to talk with one who didn’t walk in Her Light. 

Or at least, that was what he told himself. He hated that sometimes it didn’t feel like the truth, for all that it was. Yes, the few conversations he’d had with Crowley before Babel had been pleasant (the conversations _in_ Babel far more than pleasant). Yes, the times they encountered each other now were nice. But, they were nice _because_ they couldn’t speak, not in spite of it. 

Aziraphale was grateful to the Lord for Her Judgement because it meant he need not listen to the lies or temptations of a lowly demon. He couldn’t be tempted without words, after all. 

The last echoes of the bells faded to silence, leaving only the soft noise his curtains made as the wind rolled down from the hills and through his chambers. Aziraphale picked up the light cloak that rested atop a cushion and tied it around his shoulders to guard against the chill. He was just about to turn away from the window when he spotted it. 

The bright spark of a single torch crested the hill on which his eyes had lingered longest. He stilled, watching, wondering if this is the first whiff of rain on the air. 

The little light bobbed, dipped, twined and the tension in Aziraphale’s gut grew because he knew the paths around Rome and they were not like _that_. They did not weave and wander, they were planned, laid out, meticulous in the way they built upon each other. The city was a maze, but one with a sort of logic, the ancient deer trails and waterways that the people had followed, widening, fortifying, drawing them forth from the ephemeral to the solid. But, the tangle of the city righted itself at the gates and the roads flowed outward in uncomplicated lines. 

The light that followed none of those lines was soon joined by another. Then, as he watched, a third and a fourth and a fifth and then suddenly too many to count as the very top of the hill itself seemed to shift and move. Aziraphale realized with a sinking feeling that these were not the first drops, this was the flash flood and there was no high ground in sight. 

He sighed and turned away to gather up his spatha. He probably had just enough time to put the finishing touches on the report he’d been writing for the last week. He was in Rome 700 years ago, he knew how this would go and when he was discorporated Gabriel would be less annoyed if he showed up report in hand. So, securing the cloak tighter, he gathered up his favorite of the scrolls he’d collected over the last few decades and slipped into the small hidden room he miracled into existence just after acquiring these chambers. There wasn’t much space, but he could secure the scrolls behind a false panel, and perhaps they might survive the fires he was sure would be raging soon. 

His fingers lingered over the last, the brightly pigmented drawing that peeked over the edge drawing his eye as always. He touched the border, feeling the raised and rough inks against his skin, then he turned away. He could hear the sounds of the city waking now, could see the glow of the torches, brighter and brighter, a false dawn shining off the white marble.

Aziraphale would not be sad to be quit of the city, he realized. It almost hurt to see it so changed from the place he’d enjoyed. 

There were boots in the hallway, loud voices yelling, rising in fear and anger as the watchers flew back into the city and the bells once more begun to ring. 

_In total, I am pleased with my work in the Eternal City,_ Aziraphale wrote, willing his hand not to shake. _The people are devout and the influence of the church spreads further every day. I believe that Our Lord’s influence on the people is strong and that they have been set well on the path to Glory._

There, that would have to be sufficient because there were more boots, far closer and different than those that went before. Heavier. They were not the boots of a Roman stationed or living in Rome. 

He stood from his desk, snapped once to deliver his report to Gabriel’s inbox, and withdrew his spatha from its scabbard. He had just turned to face the door when it slammed open, crashing against the wall and bouncing back into the very startled demon who was knocked to the floor with a startled cry. 

Aziraphale stood in the middle of his chambers, the sounds of a city in panic surrounding him, and looked down at where Crowley lay in the ground. 

“Hello, there,” he finally managed. 

Crowley squawked and flailed, trying to disentangle himself from the thick fur cloak he wore. After a few seconds, he succeeded, flinging it backward and lurching to his feet to lean against the doorframe in the approximation of ease. 

“Salve, angelus,” he said. There was a crash from outside and he twitched. Aziraphale’s hand tightened around the hilt of his blade. 

“Are you behind this?” he asked. He might not like Rome as it was now, but people _died_ when cities were razed, surely Crowley wasn’t so base as to enjoy that? 

“Adhuc maledictus a Deo, anaticule[11].” Crowley’s smile was strained. He glanced back over his shoulder and visibly sighed. Then, he raised his hands and pointed to Aziraphale, sweeping his hand up in a gesture that clearly encompassed the whole of him, followed by a rapid series of symbols Aziraphale couldn’t parse. They made his head hurt to look at.

“You know hand languages don’t work either,” he said, suddenly bone-weary. They’d tried that once, in China when they’d happened upon each other in a village with a large number of people who could not hear. They each learned the signed language the people used in their own way and then tried to communicate, only to find that the hand shapes and movements that made so much sense with humans were nothing more than gibberish to each other. It had been a bitter tonic to swallow. 

It seemed Crowley had been hopeful despite all evidence to the contrary because his face fell at Aziraphale’s tone. He allowed his hands to still, dropping them to his sides. 

“Bene,” he said, voice low. “Bene.” Another glance over his shoulder, another heavy sigh. Then, he crossed the space between them, gently pushing Aziraphale’s sword out of the way when he was within reach, babbling the entire time, his brows pulled low and his voice serious. 

Aziraphale hated it when he did this. He was always aware that Crowley was saying things that he could not understand of course, but it was never more apparent when there was some danger and Crowley clearly needed him to know something but couldn’t convey it. Aziraphale started to put his sword fully away, but Crowley stayed his hand, meeting his gaze and shaking his head with a small frown. When Aziraphale returned the expression he gestured to the chaos outside and then mimed slitting his own throat and raised his brows. 

Ah. Right. That was clear enough. It was tantamount to self-discorporation to leave himself unarmed just then. He nodded his thanks and understanding. 

Disconcertingly, Crowley smiled at that, a broad grin that seems to imply something that Aziraphale could not parse. But, it seemed all was clear to Crowley because he clapped Aziraphale once on the shoulder and turned to go. 

“Quia nunc vale[12],” he said and he sounded sad, despite the smile that still clung to his features. He waited a few heartbeats, staring at Aziraphale, before huffing out a short laugh and turning on the heel of his over-large barbarian boots and leaving.

* * *

“Where’ve you been?” Hastur bit out. His grasp of Vandalic was rudimentary at best, for all that he’d spend nearly a year whipping them into a fervor over the broken marriage contract they were using as a pretense to sack the city. He stamped down on some poor sod’s sword hand. His leather helm stank of sweat and bile, even from a few paces away and his eyes glowed with the sort of feral glee that normally meant Crowley was going to be spending the next few decades avoiding him at all costs. 

“Around,” he muttered. Aziraphale had nodded, he told himself, he’d be safe. Sneaking off was worth that. 

Anything was worth that. 

Hastur snatched up another fallen Roman’s spear, angling it down and over to jab a dying man in the gut, prolonging his suffering. Maggots manifested in his footsteps as he strode towards Crowley. 

“You _know_ you answer to me, Crawly,” he snapped out. In the distance a horn sounded, marking the triumph of the Vandals at the southern entrance to the city. 

“Was just checking that the angel had been properly dealt with, your Lowly Worship,” Crowley said. He tried very hard to sound as if he were mocking the Duke, sure that if his own insubordination was in question then Aziraphale’s fate would not be. 

“And was he?” Another horn and now more church bells began to chime. Crowley and Hastur winced in unison, though from the sharp cry Hastur could not muffle in time, the Duke was far more affected than Crowley who had been slowly inoculated against the energy of the bells over the last few hundred years.

They joined a passing pack of Vandals and Crowley could feel the way Hastur exuded greed, violence, lust, whipping the invaders into a frenzy. Grimly, Crowley wished he could snap his fingers and lock all the doors of the street that stretched before them. But, that was a sure ticket to a painful discorporation and a few decades in the deepest pit. Crowley had so far managed to avoid losing his corporation and he really would prefer to keep it that way. 

“Crawly,” Hastur rasped, prodding him back into the present moment. 

Crowley jerked, arranged his face into something of a self-satisfied smirk, and said, “Of course, scared him off.” 

“Y’didn’t kill him?” They were halfway up the street now, Vandals peeling off in small groups at each alleyway. The sounds of battle and abuse grew louder in their wake. 

“Tried, didn’t I?” Crowley managed. “He’s been around the block a few times and he’d laid in enough holy water to slag the big guy himself.” 

“And?” Hastur paused long enough to rip a door from its hinges, rot spreading from beneath his fingers to infect the rest of the house. It would collapse before dawn, trapping those that remain in the rubble. 

Crowley looked away. 

“And what?” He snapped, thankful that Vandalic is not prone to any sort of fanciful metaphor or effusive deference. He could barely manage that on the best of days and this was far from that. It was not quite a Miracle, but Crowley encouraged a little of the rot that Hastur was spreading through the structure into the blade in his own hands. 

“That’s not nearly enough to frighten off the Great and Terrible Serpent of Eden, now is it?” Hastur’s voice was thin, reedy, and snide and Crowley was exhausted. He’d not wanted to join with the Vandals as they traveled to the south in the first place, far happier to remain in the northern forests and sow little troubles amongst the warring tribes. But, Haster had insisted and Crowley’s efforts hadn’t yet born fruit so he’d not been able to show the souls he needed to avoid this task. 

“No,” he said wearily. “It’s obviously not, since, as I said, I scared _him_ off.” 

“Didn’t kill him though.” 

“No, Hastur,” Crowley snapped, “I bloody well didn’t kill him.”

They crossed another alleyway and the flow of Vandals crashed against what appeared to be at least three contubernium, a few dozen lengionaries with their own spears and spathas already wetted with northern blood. Crowley barely dodged a jab from the closest Roman, bringing his blade up just in time to knock the spearhead off target. The air smelled of dust and copper, coating his tongue in a way that left him feeling half-blind. His parry had thrown the Roman off balance and it was the work of mere moments to step forward, smoothly sliding his feet along the paved road until he was close enough to see the startled fear in the man’s eyes. Close enough to pick out his wants, his foibles, from the chaotic mess around them. 

The man, a former slave, wanted to be rich enough that he might inspire envy in his master. 

That was it. 

That was the sum of his sins. A greed for wealth that he would never attain for the simple purpose of feeling as if he were finally in charge of his own fate. 

Crowley supposed, as his half-rotten blade slipped into a gap in the man’s armor and caught against his ribs, that if there was no longer a fate at all, then he needn’t worry about being in charge of it anymore. 

The man gasped. His left hand, the one not still holding his spear, twitched, jerked towards Crowley. A small bubble of blood burst at the corner of his lip. It was a lovely color for rouge, Crowley thought and hated himself for that. The man collapsed to his knees, yanking the sword from Crowley’s limp hand. 

There was an awful lot of noise around them, Crowley realized, and then Hastur was there, yelling something, eyes sparkling with glee even as the last dregs of life faded from the Roman’s. 

The human toppled to the ground, perfect rouge-red blood spreading around him in a parody of wings. 

Crowley thought he should probably feel either nothing or everything, should either be pleased to have fulfilled his purpose or upset at having hurt a human. 

He just felt vaguely ill. 

The Vandals crowed their triumph and Hastur’s hand was there again, roughly grabbing at Crowley’s shoulder and pressing the dead freeman’s spear into his hands. 

_Ha,_ Crowley thought, _look my idea worked. No more sword._

The spear haft was wet with blood and he really wasn’t sure that he’d managed to improve his situation at all. 

They continued down the road without encountering any further resistance, much to Hastur’s palpable disappointment. The end of the road it began to rise towards the peak of a hill where the patrician’s homes were, and by the time they got there Crowley knew he’d not be able to tolerate much longer around the Duke. 

“‘M just gonna, I mean, I’m going to go, er,” he cast about desperately for a reasonable excuse for leaving Hastur behind, “There’s a few people I want to personally, er, kill.” 

Hastur eyed him, a sharp once-over that Crowley _knew_ meant he’d not been believed. 

“Don't think that’s the case,” the Duke said, a sick smile curling his mouth. There was a single maggot wriggling at the edge. “Think you’re getting squirmy, Crawly.” 

Crowley shook his head slowly. He felt as if he should move, back away, flee, _something,_ but his feet were rooted to the ground, as outside his reach as they were in his serpent form. 

“Nnn,” he managed. 

“Nnnneh,” Hastur mocked. “Nnnn.” 

He grabbed Crowley’s shoulder and threw him back. He slammed into something hard, his head jerking back to crash against unforgiving marble. They were alone, Crowley realized, the Vandals had continued on and Hastur hated him and there was no reason at all for him to not have some “fun” with Crowley. The Duke took a step forward, that terrible smile still firmly entrenched. 

“No reason for-,” Crowley tried, levering himself up. Before he could gain his feet Hastur had grabbed him again, thrown him again, and this time he hit the flagstones hard, his already aching head bouncing. The smell of copper flooded over him again, though he couldn’t be sure if it was from his skull or the lip he’d just bitten through. 

“High time you learned your place, Crawly,” Haster snarled. The stones crumbled to dust beneath his feet as he approached, “Serpents belong in the dust.” He stamped on Crowley’s left shin where it crossed one of the divots in the ground for wagon wheels, bearing down. Crowley bit his tongue, trying to stop the cry of pain, unwilling to give Hastur that satisfaction. 

A terrible _crack_ echoed through the plaza, the noise fading a few long seconds before the pain reached Crowley. 

He screamed. 

The next moments passed in a haze. He couldn’t drag himself up out of the waves of agony long enough to snap, to heal himself, to crawl away. He didn’t mind being the beast of the ground just then, willing to suffer any indignity at all if it meant escaping this pain. 

He drifted for an indeterminate amount of time in that place. Then, Hastur’s voice, loud but not close by, roused him. 

“-knew Crawly couldn’t have handled you,” the Duke was snarling. “Bloody stupid snake.” Rapid steps, closer, closer, and then a sharp flare of star-bright agony in Crowley’s ribs. He lacked the air to shout, but what little was left in his lungs escaped in a feeble groan. 

“Quod in mea daemonium occidit[13].” 

A rasped laugh from Hastur. “Of course he is, Principality.” The air moved, shifted around him and Crowley managed to drag himself back into the present moment long enough to open his eyes a slit. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he groaned. “Whassit do’n’ere?” 

Hastur and Aziraphale ignored him. 

“Actually,” Hastur went on, “I’m done with the worm. If you want him, he’s yours.” 

Something was bothering Crowley. Something about….

“Benedicite[14],” Aziraphale’s voice was soft but firm and _ohhh_ that did things to Crowley. He _missed_ hearing Aziraphale talk. That first startled sentence earlier in the day had been the most words from the angel to him in nearly a century. 

“Fuck you,” Hastur spat. Oh, Crowley realized, Hastur wasn’t speaking Vandalic anymore, that was what had been bothering- 

The air shifted again, and this time Crowley could see the foot coming. He flinched back but did not close his eyes, unwilling to reveal a twofold weakness. 

“Verecundiam[15],” Aziraphale said. 

Then, in the breath between Hastur’s foot touching Crowley’s ribs and actually injuring him, the Duke lit from inside, glowing like a candle. 

He froze. 

He shrieked. 

He collapsed in on himself like a mushroom filled with rot, leaving behind only a thin film of grease on the flagstones. 

Hastur, Duke of Hell, returned there quite against his will. 

Crowley had just enough presence of mind left to blink thrice and mumble, “Aziraphale?” before everything faded away. 

* * *

“Aziraphale?” Crowley sounded confused, hurt, still afraid no matter that the terrible demon he’d been with was gone. 

Aziraphale sighed, glancing around to ensure they were actually alone. The sounds of the Vandals had moved on, sweeping through the city rapidly. Save for the group that Crowley and the other had been with the invading army was surprisingly... benign. Oh, there was looting and violence, but Aziraphale thought God must have been smiling on Rome because it was nothing like what he’d expected.

He’d done what Crowley wanted him to and ensured that the consul’s family was safe, sure that the Vandals were there because of the broken marriage contract. Then, he’d been drawn to the streets, unwilling to leave people to suffer when he could help. 

He dropped to a crouch at Crowley’s side, gently brushing a smudge of dirt from his face. The demon, half-insensate, moaned in pain at the slightest touch. 

“I’m so sorry, my dear,” Aziraphale murmured. “Though, it’s probably for the best that you’re not alert for this.” 

Without allowing himself time to second guess the decision Aziraphale snapping, pulling a thread of Her Energy down from Heaven. He used it to knit the shattered bone in Crowley’s leg back into a whole. Then, when he was sure no trace of the terrible injury remained he used the last scraps to start the crack in his skull on the path to healing. Crowley roused as he finished his work, blinking amber eyes open and smacking his lips as if thirsty. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale greeted. He allowed his hand to rest on Crowley’s forehead for another three breaths, trying his best to memorize the feeling without quite knowing why, before pulling it back. 

“‘Ziraphale,” Crowley said again. Then, his eyes widened and he lurched to a half seated position, hands flying to his shin.“Tu sanasti me,” he said, voice filled with wonder. “Quare[16]?”

Unwilling to have yet another conversation where he couldn’t say what he wanted to, Aziraphale shook his head and held out a hand to pull Crowley to his feet. Once the demon was on his feet, Aziraphale hesitantly dropped his hand and took a few rapid steps away. 

“Angelus?” Crowley asked. The furrow between his brows was deep and Aziraphale felt positively wretched. Crowley had warned him about all this, had put himself in danger to do so with his superior in the city. But, he couldn’t help the idea that if they lingered near each other for even another breath then something awful would happen. 

Aziraphale shook his head. “Crowley.” He raised one hand in farewell, turned on his heel, and fled back into the city. 

* * *

Footnotes: 

1. Latin, give me a drink.↩

2. hello↩

3. That's a disgusting drink.↩

4. For the modern reader this is the equivalent of a month's wages for the average worker.↩

5. I hope your bread tastes better than your beer.↩

6. Are you coming, angel?↩

7. I know the perfect place to eat this.↩

8. Are you okay?↩

9. You're okay.↩

10. Best in the city.↩

11. Still cursed by God, little duck.↩

12. Goodbye for now.↩

13. That is my demon to kill.↩

14. Bless you.↩

15. A shame.↩

16. You healed me. Why?↩

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Detailed Chapter Warning: Crowley is with Hastur as part of the Vandalic force invading the city, he kills a man and the injury/blood is described. Later he and Hastur fight and Haster deliberately breaks Crowley's leg.


	7. Ormrinn enn se Cniht

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyy folks. A few things before we dive in! First, I’m making a change to canon in favor of historical accuracy here. Apologies. Instead of Crowley and Aziraphale meeting in 571 in Wessex (what a huge incredibly non-specific spot lol), I’m moving them a bit further north to modern-day Ravenstone and shifting the year to 889 (aka, fairly early in the Danelaw/Viking occupation of the region). This is primarily to have a more interesting linguistic setting but also I think the parallels between two sides/cultures hit harder. Yay history! However, this also means that Aziraphale is not a Knight of the Round Table here. I’m sure he still was back when Arthur was a thing, but he didn’t encounter Crowley during that time. This is their first meeting with Aziraphale as a Knight. 
> 
> Second, there’s a plot vital thing that happens that requires a little bit of linguistics background. I’m going to put an explanation in the end notes in case anyone wants to go in unspoiled (or just plain doesn’t feel like reading it haha, that’s valid too). I’ll explain the title of the chapter down there too, but for now I’ll say that if you can translate it, you’ll have a big clue about what the plot-important linguistic thing is (for anyone who wants to play historical linguist/detective <3)
> 
> Finally, this chapter earns the E rating. That means that before the sex scene there will be a link to a brief summary of the plot-important stuff that happens during the sex and then a link back to the end of the scene, so you can skip the smut if you so desire. There's also a piece of nsfw but not explicit art I did in this scene.

_Village of Hrœfnestūn[1] in the Dene lagu[2], ġēar hlāfordes[3] 878 ár dróttinsins[4]_

Crowley really was going to go spare if he had to endure one more blessed _misty_ day in a row. He might not be a snake right now, but the core of him never really stopped feeling snakey and it was bloody fuckin’ cold encased in chainmail with the damp soaked into the horsehair stuffing of his vápntreyja, to say nothing of the way it crept up the cuffs of his breeches. 

“Herra[5]! Herra uh, Black Riddari, sir! You’ve forgotten your helmet, m’lord!”

Crowley gritted his teeth in annoyance, trying to force down the swell of nasty words that wanted to spew forth. The squire, what was his name again? Aldric? Aldridge? Alderryionafath? Something ridiculous he was sure. 

“Yesss, _kertilsveinr_[6],” he snapped out deciding that avoiding the boy’s name was the right route here. Besides, emphasizing the boy’s rank might remind him of his place. The lad scrambled over, holding out the helm. The mail aventail rattled slightly as his hands shook. Crowley rolled his eyes and snatched it up, cramming it down over his padded arming cap and flipping the visor upward.

“There. Happy?”

The boy had the gall to smile at him, huge and pleased. “Yessir, I am sir. I don’t want you to be beheaded, sir.” 

“Right, you’d miss that paycheck.” 

“Pay what, sir?” 

Crowley flapped one hand dismissively. He couldn’t be bothered to remember which words were modern and which were anachronistic, they just jangled about his head heedless of what he actually needed when. The boy, more than used to this sort of interaction, bustled around him, checking his armor and occasionally tweaking bits and pieces as he went, muttering along to himself. Finally, Crowley grew frustrated and stepped away, batting at the boy’s hand when he tried to make one final adjustment. 

“It’s fine.” 

“I worry, Herra Crowley,” the boy said. He was pulling on his own armor, rapidly tying the fabric pulls with deft fingers. Crowley envied him his dexterity. His own fingers felt clumsy with the cold and damp, slow even to snap when he tried. 

“Well, stop it.” The boy laughed and Crowley bit back another few curses. He wasn’t _fond_ of the urchin, the inappropriateness of that sort of emotion had been made very clear at his last quarterly evaluation, and in Rome before that[7] His leg still ached sometimes, his dreams still echoed with the sound it had made when Hastur-

“Herra?” 

Crowley shook those thoughts away, shoving them back into the pool of sulfur where they belonged. 

“S’nothing,” he told the boy. Aldric, he was sure that was the right name, though he wouldn’t be saying it aloud anytime soon to test that theory.

“If you’re sure, sir,” Aldric sounded hesitant. 

“I am.” 

He finished adjusting his helm and aventail, shrugged his shoulders up to his ears and back down to settle the mail comfortably, and stalked from the Godblessed tent into the mist. 

He hated this bloody island. Nothing good happened here. He’d not been back since Boudica and, for all that the land was ripe for his preferred sort of low-effort chaos, it was hard to look at the bright green hills and thick woods and see anything but the path the tears had cut across her daughters’ faces. It left him feeling grumpy and out of sorts and prone to snapping when he didn’t mean to, which sent his mood spiraling further towards downright foul. Other demons might revel in the dark paths their moods walked, but Crowley was not one of them; he liked being comfortable and things like annoyance and frustration were sure ways to miss out on that feeling. 

So, he was understandably cross to discover that the English knight his informants had spotted fording the river had yet to appear in the open area Crowley preferred for these sorts of confrontations. 

“Go, I don’t know, see what’s holding them up,” he ordered Aldric, waving one hand even as he wondered if he had enough time to enjoy a bit of the emergency mead he had the kertilsveinr carry for him. He’d only just begun to unlace the top of the pack when he heard Aldric’s low whistle. 

A grin crossed his face. There was always chaos to be had here on the border of Danish lands, but his favorite was when upstart English knights wanted to challenge him. He left the laces half-done and stood, loosing his sword in its sheath.

Showtime. 

* * *

Æthelred had been in a bit of a snit when he sent Aziraphale on this quest. Some new drama with his wife and her father, the King in the South, and a flurry of letters that all seemed more dramatic than the last. It was all very sordid and Aziraphale was glad to be quit of it. He was sure Crowley would have revelled in the drama, but he rather preferred when things were quiet and calm. So, he’d stood there and nodded as seriously as he could as Lord Æthelred explained about the terrible wyrm in the northern forests that had already slain a score or more. The longer he listened the more sure he was that he was about to have to somehow convince a giant, sulking serpent to turn back into a demon (likely still sulking, if he was honest with himself) and stop terrorizing the nice people now _please_. 

The forest in question was quite a bit further east than Æthelred[8] usually cared to extend his reach. In fact, Aziraphale was not actually sure that he was even still on Æthelred’s lands; the Danelaw had spread rapidly while Æthelred was embroiled in fighting the horde as it swept across the land. Though, Aziraphale supposed it didn’t matter. He was the one best suited to take care of the ‘magical black serpent with the snippy attitude’ (to quote Sir Beornflad after Æthelred left the witan behind). At the very edge of the dense wood Aziraphale called for his company to halt and make camp. There was no reason to negotiate around trees and rocks and Lord only knows what else when they could instead spread out on the perfectly serviceable field beside the wide, lazy river that bordered the trees. 

His squire, a luxury he’d protested mightily and then grown to love, was quick to set up his tent and lay out his nightshirt before scuttling off to see to the fire. 

(Aziraphale knew that ‘seeing to the fire’ was a thinly veiled excuse to chat with Sir Garanwyn’s squire but neither he nor Garanwyn was about to protest. The boys were happy and they always finished their tasks before slipping away together.) 

After dinner was eaten and the night’s watch assigned, Sir Garanwyn came to Azirpahale’s tent, a deep set frown on his craggy face. 

“Sir,” he said, stopping just inside the tent flap. 

Aziraphale looked up from the sheaf of letters the king had received about the serpent. He’d hoped to divine something new, some clue about where to begin his search, but it was for naught. 

“Sir Garanwyn!” Aziraphale smiled at him. The human was gruff and often far more brash than the situation called for but he was a good man to have at your back in a fight and not one to quibble over the chain of command. “How can I help you?”

Garanwyn grunted and approached, taking the question as the invitation it had been. 

“We’re close to the wīcingas[9].”

Aziraphale waited for him to say more, but it seemed that was all that would be forthcoming. 

“Ah, yes, we are.” He rolled up the letters and slipped them back into the oiled leather tube he’d acquired for their protection. No Miracles at all, humans were wonders. “Are you concerned?” 

That caused Garanwyn to stop and draw up to his full height, scowl deepening. 

“Of course not.” He stared at Aziraphale for a long moment before sighing expansively and slumbing. He scratched the back of his neck as he said, “Apologies, m’lord. I am worried, though I’m hesitant to admit it for fear of scaring the lads.”

Aziraphale nodded, pleased by having been right. The other angels he spoke with always talked about how hard humans were to interpret, how mysterious their motivations and desires, but Aziraphale found it all fairly straightforward, when one took the time to pay attention. 

“Rightly so,” he said. 

“Are you not concerned?” 

Aziraphale hummed, smoothing down the edge of his fur-lined cloak where it hung on the center pole of his tent. He wondered if Crowley had turned into the serpent to avoid the chill in the air, it was rather miserable out and he knew the demon did not like dreary weather. 

“Sir?”

“Ah, my apologies, Sir Garanwyn,” he forced a short laugh even as he scolded himself for responding as if—Well, as if he were in entirely different company. “I am concerned, though more about the beast we’re here to best than the Danes. Not so far away from the sea.” 

“And the Black Knight?” 

Aziraphale laughed, “Nothing more than wīcinga stories to scare the villagers into obedience.” 

Garanwyn was giving him another odd look, but he did not protest. 

“Very well, Sir Aziraphale. I’ll make sure the lads don’t stray too far tonight and set the watch.” 

Then, he was gone and Aziraphale was left with only his thoughts. 

* * *

“Sir?” 

Aziraphale sighed. “What is it now, Claiburne?” 

“I know you’re a Knight of the Realm and far more accomplished than I could ever hope to be with a sword and, of course, blessed by Our Lord G-”

“Do get to the point, there’s a good lad.” Aziraphale hated his helm, but it did have the advantage of concealing his annoyance. Idly, he wondered if Garanwyn had these sorts of issues. Perhaps he ought not have told the other man to take the more northern wood in their search. Someone to commiserate with would be nice. 

“Right, sorry. It’s just, aren’t you concerned at all about the Black Knight?” 

Aziraphale peered out into the mist. They’d forded the river that morning and were approaching the first of a series of clearings that the local villagers had said the serpent was known to haunt. He hoped Crowley would show himself soon and they could hash this all out without too much strife. He’d like to go for a nice swim in the river before heading back to report a job well done to Æthelred. 

“What was that?” he asked, realizing he’d only been half-listening to the boy. 

“The Black Knight. He’s supposed to haunt these woods.” 

“Haunt?” 

“Yessir! He’s dead, you see? They say he was a knight who fought the Danes when they first landed and was killed and this is where he was born and he’d sworn to never leave his people defenseless against the heathens and-”

“Claiburne, what have we said about the use of that word?” 

The squire sighed. They crossed a small stream, the sound of Aziraphale’s armor against the rocks oddly muffled by the mist that surrounded them. 

“Not to use it, apologies m’Lord.” 

“The only true apology is changed behavior.” Aziraphale knew it wasn't his job to raise this boy, but _really_. It was ridiculous to allow him such a close-minded attitude. “Go on.” 

Claiburne jumped across the last three stepping stones and landed at Aziraphale’s side with a broad grin. 

“Right away, sir.” He fell back into step. “So he died a hero’s death and because he was good and pious and always did as he was bid, God granted him a boon.”

“Ah, and so he asked to return to life.” 

“No sir, he asked-”

Aziraphale held up one hand, halting Claiburne’s words. He’d heard… there! Just ahead, barely visible through the mist were two figures, their edges made unsettlingly inhuman by the early morning light as it cut through the fog. If Aziraphale was being honest, he’d not expected to run into anyone on two feet. He was sent after a Serpent, after all. 

“Hello!” He raised his faceplate and glanced back at Claiburne, mouthing for him to stay put. The boy nodded. “I, sir Aziraphale, Knight under Lord Æthelred the King of all Mercia, am here to defend this wood against the serpent.” 

One of the figures peeled off from the other, creeping closer in odd, jittering movements until the fog parted and Aziraphale recognized him as a boy not much older than Claiburne, his features delicate and his pale hair pulled back into a chaotic series of braids. 

“Oh! Hello there,” Aziraphale smiled at the boy. “Are you-” The boy didn’t seem to be listening. He looked afraid, his face twisted and set even as he gestured for Aziraphale to follow him and began to move away, still with that odd limping gait. 

“I- I was hoping to, to help you with your dragon problem,” Aziraphale explained, hurrying up just a bit so the mist wouldn’t swallow the boy. He could hear Claiburne’s footsteps just behind him. 

The second, much taller, of the two figures before them reached out and grabbed the boy when he drew close, pulling him back and away from Aziraphale. They then began to stalk forward, their movements just as odd and stilted as they boys had been, though in a very different way. When they drew close they began to speak, their voice low and menacing. 

“Hví kom þú hér?” 

“Ah, I’m afraid I don’t- Crowley? Is that you?” 

The person finally stepped close enough that Aziraphale could see that their inhuman shape came from a thick cloak wrapped around armor. They lifted their helm from their head, the mail slithering across their padded headpiece, until finally it was pulled in turn to reveal Crowley. His hair was shaggy and messy, a short braid that was half plastered to his head by sweat and half coming loose in chaotic curls. Aziraphale forcibly suppressed a fierce surge of affection for the demon, uncaring that he was also shoving his own desire to speak away. There was no point in saying anything if it fell on deaf ears. Behind him, he heard Claiburne whisper, “Sir, sir, the Black Knight,” but he paid the boy no mind. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, a broad smile crossing his face. “Ǫll eru vel **,** Aldric, ég þekki hann. Ek tel hann góðan mann vera.” He peered at Aziraphale with narrowed eyes. “Há, komask.” 

The boy who had been hiding behind Crowley peeked out and then slowly emerged, though he stayed half-curled over himself, clearly terrified. Now that he was still, Aziraphale could see the crooked angle of his left knee. A bit of shame uncurled at having thought he moved strangely. He knew better than that. 

“Yes?” he said to Crowley and, as always, Aziraphale felt a sharp pang of longing because he knew the boy was speaking the same language Crowley was and yet it was plain as day to Azirpahale. 

Crowley reeled off instructions, rapid-fire words and gesturing combining in a cascade that probably should have alarmed Aziraphale, but in reality only made him smile. The boy nodded once and then turned to Aziraphale. 

“Hello, I am Alfric,” he paused when Crowley made a loud noise and jabbed one hand towards him. “Of course that’s my name! That’s what I told you whe-” Crowley waved him off and he straightened, facing Aziraphale again, “Apologies, m’lord. The esteemed Lord Crowley would like to treat with you, should you be willing.” 

Aziraphale could not tear his eyes from Crowley. The demon tilted his head and ran one hand through his already ruined hair, the corner of his mouth quirking in the start of a smile. He said something, quietly, and Alfric echoed him. 

“What do you say, angel? Treat with a demon?” 

That startled a laugh from Aziraphale. 

“Tempting me?” He said even before he realized he’d spoken. Immediately he wanted to withdraw the words, the old feeling of being ignored, misunderstood, set aside, rising up. But, then, the squire repeated his words back to Crowley and the demon lit up, a beacon that shone through the mist brighter than any torch. 

“If you can tolerate being seen with a viking,” the squire said, stumbling over the last of it. He looked dreadfully curious when Aziraphale glanced at him, though he schooled his features to careful neutrality as soon as he noticed Aziraphale looking. 

Aziraphale could think of nothing save the sound Crowley’s leg had made in Rome. He shook his head, involuntarily at first and then more firmly. “No,” he said, “No, that’s impossible. It’s too dangerous.” 

The squire repeated his words to Crowley and immediately the smile faded. Crowley took a few steps forward and, almost unconsciously, Aziraphale mirrored him. 

“Everything is dangerous,” the squire said. “You could trip off a cliff and, uh, apologies Herra, I don’t know that word.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes. He said something and when the squire did not immediately start translating again, snapped his fingers a few times impatiently, the leather of his gloves muffled the sound, deepening his scowl. 

“Doesn’t matter, he, uh, I think he means you Sir Knight, know what he means.” The squire looked hopelessly confused and Aziraphale did not attempt to hide his fond smile. He knew that feeling all too well when dealing with Crowley. 

“Do not trouble yourself,” he reassured the lad, “I do know what he means.” 

“Thank you, sir.” Crowley groaned impatiently and the boy continued, “Right, uh, he says it’s all dangerous and it always has been. That you,” he paused and swallowed before going on with wide eyes and a slightly shaking voice, “That if you were so worried about _safe_ you’d never have talked in Eden or, or, Herra, please, that can’t be...” 

Crowley nodded and gestured. 

The squire sighed, “You’d never have talked to him in Eden or Babel and neither of you would have this problem. Safe is a fantasy.” 

Aziraphale swallowed. He’d been doing a lot of thinking these last few decades and realized something very important; he was lonely. The only times he wasn’t lonely were when he sat beside Crowley and drank, listening as the demon chattered on incomprehensibly. More than that, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to be on Earth at all, if Crowley wasn’t there with him. He didn’t think it was love or anything like that, and besides, even if it was it was less than pointless to love someone you couldn’t even have a proper conversation with. Moreover, demons couldn’t love. That was rather the point of the Fall. 

Aziraphale was many things, but he liked to think he wasn’t entirely pathetic. 

Crowley seemed to read something in his face because he sighed heavily and waved, as if to dismiss their entire previous conversation. 

“It’s going to rain soon,” the squire said, “And I’m bloody tired of being in this armor already."

It was almost painful, Aziraphale thought, to have these sort of flashes of what might have been. He'd distantly remembered finding Crowley amusing in the early days, but never expected he'd be wry and honest and so very attuned to Aziraphale's moods. 

"You're here to slay the Serpent," the squire said, eyes flicking back to Crowley in what looked like fear. Aziraphale wondered if he had an inkling of exactly what sort of creature his master was. "I know where it lives. We can go in the morning." 

Aziraphale weighed his options. He did need to hunt down the serpent, Sir Garanwyn was an honest man and would not be deterred in their quest simply because Aziraphale said, “oh no, you see my hereditary enemy, whom I might have more than inimical feelings for, is here so we really must be going. Pip pip. There’s a good human.” 

It was laughable. 

He needed to hunt down the serpent. But, the idea of remaining in this interminable mist for any longer than necessary was miserable. If he turned down Crowley’s offer he was likely to spend the next few weeks bumbling about the wood, damp and foolish, until he finally stumbled upon the lair. 

The alternative… He looked at Crowley. The demon was watching him steadily, his expression carefully blank. When he noticed Aziraphale looking, he quirked his brows together and tilted his head back slightly. That, more than any words the squire had spoken for Crowley, settled Aziraphale’s gut. That was familiar, the language known only to the two of them used to invite Aziraphale to do something he should not but that Crowley knew he would enjoy. 

He huffed out a quiet laugh. 

“Yes, okay,” he said. “Tell your master that I’ll accompany him back to his camp so we might plan.” 

“Sir!” Claiburne protested, “That’s the Black Knight! He’s…” 

“Better than any _Mercian_ knight,” Crowley’s squire snapped out, his English heavily accented, but competent. 

Aziraphale had to hide his smile when he noticed Crowley’s eyes turned towards the sky in what he might call supplication on anyone else. He said something to the squire who subsided but looked mutinous about it. 

“Claiburne, all’s well,” Aziraphale said, after he’d taken a moment to compose himself. “I can defend myself and the good knight is an honorable man. I’ll return to you hale.” 

He snapped as he spoke, the gentlest brush of his fingertips against each other and Claiburne’s mind, easing his worry so that he would nod and agree to take word to Sir Garanwyn and await Aziraphale at the main camp. 

As soon as Claiburne was gone, Crowley beckoned his own squire over. He pulled a hefty pouch from his bag[10] and spoke to the boy for a bit before thrusting the bag into his hands and gripping his shoulder. The squire nodded a few times, his eyes flicking to Aziraphale and back to Crowley before he said, “Yes, herra. But, you’ll call for me if you’ve need?”

For a moment it looked like Crowley might argue, but then he sighed heavily and nodded before physically turning the boy away from him and nudging him down the path. 

And then, they were alone. 

* * *

The place Crowley led Aziraphale to was nothing like he expected. Though, if asked, he likely would not have been able to say _what_ he expected at all. Crowley was a creature of motion in his mind, only settled for the briefest of moments when he joined Aziraphale in whatever place _Aziraphale_ had chosen. The only time Crowley had shown Aziraphale a place that could be called ‘his’ it was a bathhouse and it was clearly carefully chosen. This place was… the only word Aziraphale could use was ‘homey’, though it did not match what he might have conjured given that definition. 

They had emerged from the wood into a small clearing that butted up against a sharp cliff-face. Nestled in a large crevice in the cliff was a cottage. It had a thatch roof and light shone from within, a fire clearly burning away in the hearth. Out front there were a few training dummies, their straw-packed bodies showing evidence of actual use. Something about that warmed Aziraphale. Crowley didn’t seem like the sort of person who did things the long way. But, he was clearly fond of his squire and the boy would need actual training. In fact, Aziraphale looked around and spotted an even smaller cottage on the far end of the clearing, empty now as Crowley had sent the squire off on some errand, but clearly warm and just as clearly loved by its inhabitant. 

Crowley took his hand and Aziraphale jumped. The demon was staring at him with one eyebrow raised. Aziraphale blushed. He’d not even realized he stopped walking. He pursed his lips in apology and Crowley muttered what he could only assume was an acceptance. 

Crowley opened the door of the cottage by pressing against the middle and then kicking the bottom. The struggle was hopelessly charming, but even more so was the bright blush that crossed his cheeks at having been caught in the act. The feeling in Aziraphale’s chest blazed brighter. Fondness, he thought, that was a good word for it. 

He was _fond_ of Crowley. 

The door swung open to reveal a cramped, but cozy space. There was only the one window, set into the wall by the door, and the ceiling was low enough that the very top of Crowley’s helm was a bare finger-width below the crossbeam. The bed was situated against the back wall, but the space was small enough that the foot jutted right into the middle of the room, barely two paces from the door. A fire crackled away merrily in the hearth and the size of the cottage did what it was clearly meant to; the lack of windows meant less places for the heat to escape, the low ceiling meant the warmth had nowhere to go. It was a little bubble of comfort, cast all in reds and golds, in a dreary world. Crowley dropped his hand and stepped away, beginning to strip his armor off even as he chattered. He gestured to the fire and nudged a log with his boot. When Aziraphale stepped close to look he spotted the bubbling pot of thick stew and suddenly he was ravenous. There was a hearty loaf of bread on a stone just beside the fire, kept warm in preparation for the meal. 

“Aziraphale.” He looked away from the food to see that Crowley had come close again. He’d removed the pieces of armor he could on his own, but Aziraphale knew from experience he could do no more without help. Why hadn’t he just snapped? That was what Aziraphale did when Claiburne wasn’t around. 

He raised his hand and mocked snapping. Something in Crowley’s face shifted, his eyes drifting away from Aziraphale’s face towards the floor. He muttered something and shrugged. Then, he raised his own hand, preparing to snap. 

Aziraphale grabbed his wrist to stop him. 

“Crowley,” he whispered. It felt as if he’d not spoken for weeks, though the trip through the wood had been barely an hour’s walk. Being around Crowley always did that to him, left him wordless and lost. 

Crowley looked back at him. Slowly, giving the demon time to pull away if he wished, Aziraphale slid his hand up Crowley’s arm until he reached the buckle of his pauldrons. He touched the leather and looked to Crowley’s face again, watching his eyes widen as Aziraphale’s fingertip worked its way under the tight strap. The demon’s breath was coming in short pants. Aziraphale set to slowly removing the rest of his armor, taking the time to set each piece on the small table set beside the door before turning back and smoothing his hand over each newly revealed patch of the demon. Crowley stayed stock still, scarcely breathing. When Aziraphale crouched to remove his greaves, Crowley grunted and took a step back, waving him off. Aziraphale watched, feeling oddly dazed, as he turned away and quickly shucked them. 

When Crowley sat down to remove his boots, Aziraphale snapped his own armor off, piling it neatly on the table beside Crowley’s and trying not to examine the warm feeling that seeing their armor side-by-side gave him. He was just overtired. The demon looked up and squawked at him gesturing between Aziraphale and the armor with a scowl. 

Aziraphale laughed. There was no reason for either of them to take their armor off manually. Crowley had clearly been around humans too long and Aziraphale had become caught up in his own unexplainable urges. 

After a few more disgruntled noises Crowley turned to the pot of stew and filled a large bowl. He tore a hunk of the bread off and set it so the edge began to soak in the stew. The bread crackled in his fingers, slighted toasted from where it had sat beside the fire. The smell of the stew was stronger now, hearty and rich and everything that Aziraphale wanted on a day like this one. 

Crowley stood and brought him the bowl, holding it out with a small smile. 

Aziraphale stared at it. The meat was cut large, just the way Aziraphale preferred. It stayed more tender that way, he’d always thought. 

Crowley, when he ate at all, tended to prefer smaller pieces in his quest to avoid chewing at all costs. 

The meat was in large pieces. 

Aziraphale took the bowl from Crowley, crossed the small space, and set it down beside the rest of the bread to stay warm. 

Crowley frowned, asking a question if the way his words lilted up at the end could be trusted. He turned towards the narrow shelves where Aziraphale could see a small store of dry goods. He was still talking, clearly flustered and upset. Aziraphale grabbed his hand once more, using it to pull him close. Crowley’s words stuttered to a halt. 

Without his gauntlets or gloves, Crowley’s wrist was slim, almost fragile looking. Aziraphale could see the bright blue of his veins through the thin skin at the center. He traced one finger over them, marveling at the rush of blood he could feel underneath. Crowley was so _alive._ None of the other angels felt this way. Aziraphale saw them so rarely, but they always seem more like marble given the gift of movement than a collection of blood and muscles and skin and bones. They seemed crafted in all the ways Crowley was grown. 

“Aziraphale?” Crowley’s voice trembled. 

Aziraphale smiled up at him. He released Crowley’s wrist and rolled up his own sleeve, revealing the speckled scars he’d had ever since the Hellfire. 

Crowley sucked in a sharp breath. He touched the largest of the scars, a long line that showed where the edge of the cuff had sat, before looking at Aziraphale through long lashes. 

“Aziraphale,” he murmured, “Fyrirgef mik. Ek-”

Aziraphale cut him off with a gentle tap on the back of his hand. He shook his head and guided Crowley’s fingers in tracing the line of the scar again, hoping his meaning was clear. He could have Miracled the scars away any time, Gabriel had even told him everyone in Heaven was surprised he hadn’t. Aziraphale told them it was because he liked the tangible proof of Heaven’s mastery over the forces of evil. But, that was a lie. 

The truth of it was that he hadn’t known at first why he kept them. He’d been upset and weak after Crowley freed him. Extended captivity left him nervous and jumpy. One night, awake in the middle of his room and unable to concentrate on the stitching he’d been doing to pass the hours when the humans slept, he found himself tracing the scars over and over. It had calmed him then and so he kept them. It wasn’t until centuries later that he realized why the scars meant so much to him. 

They were proof that someone had once done something entirely for him, with no ulterior motive and at great cost to themself. 

Tangible evidence that Crowley cared for him as well, inasmuch as a demon was capable of such things. 

He poured these feelings into his own aura, hoping projecting them might help Crowley understand. After a few passes, Crowley’s eyes widened. They darted up to Aziraphale’s own, large and hopeful and so beautiful they hurt to look at. Whatever he saw in Aziraphale seemed to answer the question he’d been asking because he gently turned Aziraphale’s wrist over and wove their fingers together, collapsing onto the edge of the bed as if all the strength had gone from him. Aziraphale followed him down, landing so his hip was pressed against Crowley’s and their hands rested cradled in the divot between their legs. 

Aziraphale beamed at him. 

* * *

They sat in silence for a bit, each enjoying the sensation of warm hands in their own, each unsure of how they were meant to continue. Then, Crowley spoke, words dripping from his tongue like autumn honey. 

“Can… touch?”

Aziraphale’s breath caught in his throat because… _Oh Merciful Lord_ , he’d understood that. 

“Crowley, have you found a way around the curse? Why didn’t you use it before? Why the squire?” But Crowley was shaking his head, looking overwhelmed and apologetic. 

“No,” he said, “Not… ah. No fix.” He let go of Aziraphale’s hands long enough to run one hand through his hair, pulling a few sweaty curls free of the tangled braid. He paused before taking Aziraphale’s hand back up, looking at his own sweat damp one with a grimace and then wiping it clean on his tunic. 

The feeling Aziraphale had been fighting for so very long burst forth, filling every corner of him with light. Without hesitation, he raised their clasped hands to his mouth and pressed a long kiss to the scuffed skin at his knuckles. 

“Erk,” Crowley said, voice half strangled and Aziraphale laughed because he found he understood _that_ perfectly. 

“Quite,” he said with a grin. The light in Aziraphale’s chest felt like it was going to burn him up from within if he didn’t do something about it and soon. 

Crowley seemed to have a similar idea. He swallowed heavily and licked his lower lip, tongue worrying for a brief moment at the little scab right in the center. 

“No fix,” he said again, “I make, er, lahslit.” 

Listening to him felt distinctly odd. Aziraphale recognized the words but they were not quite right. He wasn’t using the correct endings or particles and the order was all wrong. But, somehow, he understood[11]. 

“Talk as Norse meet Angle,” Crowley went on, “No tongue, no now.” 

He took their hands and pressed them together as he spoke, clearly hoping the meaning would be clear. Aziraphale thought furiously, trying to divine what Crowley might be trying to tell him. After a few seconds in which he came up with nothing Crowley’s eyes widened. 

“Hold,” he said. He rose from the bed and grabbed Aziraphale’s English style helm from atop his pile of armor, then he picked up his own, wrought in the viking tradition, from where he’d dropped it as they entered. He stood in front of Aziraphale and held them out, one in each hand. 

“Helma,” he said, lifting Aziraphale’s. Then, raising the Norse one, “Hjalmvǫlr.” 

That odd sensation again. Aziraphale knew those words and he knew they referred to the things in Crowley’s hands, but he couldn’t connect those ideas into anything that made sense. Crowley seemed to know that because he grinned and shifted so he held both in one hand, long fingers straining. 

“Tveir helmas[12].”

Aziraphale’s heart stopped in his chest. 

“Tveir helmas,” he repeated back, voice strangled. _Two helmets!_ Crowley nodded, grin wide enough to show the little points of his teeth. 

He understood that. 

He _understood Crowley._

A laugh tore itself from his chest. He surged to his feet and snatched the helms away from Crowley, tossing them down on the bed. Then, far more gently he took Crowley’s face in his hands. 

“You beautiful, clever thing you,” he whispered knowing it would not be understood but unable to resist the compliment. Crowley grinned at him, and it was one that Aziraphale had never seen before, lopsided and loose and so unselfconscious it forced him to realize that every grin which had come before was guarded. 

Quite without planning to, Aziraphale pulled Crowley's head in, closer, closer, until he could taste the air from Crowley's lungs on his tongue and see the fine golden specks in his sunflower eyes. Then, he could see nothing at all save the red of light through his own eyelids, could taste nothing save Crowley's mouth. He jerked back, startled. 

Crowley was still very close, his lips parted slightly and shiny. He panted lightly, his eyes wide and narrow pupils blown open to something approaching round. Aziraphale started to pull his hands away, to put some space between them to process what had just happened, but before he’d even fully shifted his weight, a quiet sound escaped Crowley. 

“What you say?” he asked, slowly, carefully choosing his words and their order in the way Crowley had shown him. Crowley’s eyes grew that much wider and Aziraphale noticed that his hands were clenched tight on his breeches, the loose fabric bunched together. 

He was… afraid? That made no sense at all. Aziraphale pulled further away, suddenly worried he’d taken advantage, seized a liberty that was not his to claim and given Crowley no choice at all in the matter. 

“Oh!” he said, “Oh I didn’t mean to, oh damn it.” He paused and switched to the stilted half-language. “My apologies. Not mean-” He gestured between them, to his own lips and Crowley’s. 

The demon stared at him with that same half-shocked, half-fearful expression and Aziraphale felt as if his chest were caving in on itself. 

“Please,” Aziraphale whispered, “I will not do,” again a gesture to the empty space, “Please talk?” He did not think he could stand it if he’d ruined things between them with his own spontaneity just as Crowley had figured out how they might actually communicate. 

“You… want kiss?” Crowley asked, achingly tentative. He wasn’t looking at Aziraphale any longer, eyes instead locked on his own clenched fists. 

“I—” Aziraphale wanted to say yes, wanted to tell Crowley that he’d thought about kissing him for decades now. He knew he wasn’t being fair, that he’d never been as brave as Crowley, never as clever or as bold, and certainly not as beautiful. But, he selfishly wanted to kiss him anyway. 

Crowley seemed to take his pause as answer enough and stood, backing away from the bed and towards the door before pausing and looking around, as if seeing the space for the first time. Despite the gravity of the situation Aziraphale laughed. 

“It is your home,” he said. He stood from the bed and reached out, circling Crowley’s wrist in a loose grip. “I go.”

He started to pass by, mentally calling himself twelve kinds of fool, but Crowley twisted in his grip and caught him. 

“You want kiss?” Crowley asked again, eyes boring into his own. 

Aziraphale could feel the chill seeping in through the cracks around the thin door behind him. Crowley’s fingers were a blaze of heat tangled in his own. 

“Yes,” he said. Crowley seemed to consider this, closing his eyes and holding tight to Aziraphale before nodding and stepping forward, crowding him against the door. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked. The wood was frigid, sending a shiver through him. Crowley stepped closer still, hesitating only a half-heartbeat before slotting his right leg between Aziraphale’s. “Oh!” He’d never felt anything quite like it before, pressure against the core of him that he simultaneously wanted to chase and flee from. 

“Safe,” Crowley murmured. He untangled his fingers from Aziraphale’s, instead gripping his wrist and raising his hand so that Aziraphale’s outstretched fingers touched his chest, right in the center. He’d done that in Rome, too. The press of bare fingers to bare skin had been burned into Aziraphale’s very essence. 

“Safe?” He wasn’t quite sure what Crowley was telling him. The demon let go of his hand and nodded. He shifted forward ever-so-slightly and wrapped his hands around Aziraphale’s hips, looking significantly between his face and his hand. Cautiously, Aziraphale lifted his fingers away from his chest and then lowered them again. As soon as they touched him, Crowley let go of his hips and stepped back. 

“Safe,” he said, with a broad grin and Aziraphale laughed. 

“You kiss me,” he said, refusing to blush or feel self-conscious as he rode the high of realizing that Crowley had given them not only words, but a way to feel comfortable together. 

“Yes, herra Knight,” Crowley said, his own laugh clear in his semi-mocking reply. He leaned back in, hands once more landing on Aziraphale’s hips and caught Aziraphale’s lips in his own. This was unlike the last time, which has been simple, almost chaste. Now, Crowley was ravenous, catching Aziraphale’s lower lip between his teeth and nipping at it. Aziraphale gasped and when Crowley took that opportunity to lick his upper lip, Aziraphale thought his corporation’s heart might give out. How had he ever thought of Crowley as hard edges and angles when he was so clearly soft? His fingers were gentle as they trailed up Aziraphale’s sides, barely touching him but never ceasing their explorations, mapping the mountains and valleys of his body. Aziraphale’s own hands wanted nothing more than to be buried in Crowley’s hair and he realized as the tip of Crowley’s tongue touched his, that there was nothing stopping him. He buried his hands in Crowley’s hair and discovered that it too was soft. His left hand caught on a tangle, pulling slightly and Crowly moaned into his mouth, his tongue delving deeper. 

A sudden violent gust of wind slammed against the front of the little cottage, rattling the shutters in their frame and sending knives of frozen air into every gap that Crowley had exposed in Aziraphale’s clothing. 

He shuddered, jolting forward as he instinctively chased the warmth still trapped between them. Crowley laughed and used his grip on Aziraphale’s hips to swing them around so his own back faced the door and Aziraphale could feel the warmth of the fire. The wind was still howling and the wooden window cover was rattling and when Crowley shivered, Aziraphale decided they were being silly. 

“Bed?” he asked, quietly. Crowley’s eyes widened and he nodded rapidly. They stumbled across the small space, unwilling to part even long enough to navigate around the room. The bed was closer than he’d thought and when Aziraphale’s shins hit the edge he was startled enough to lose his balance and topple over backwards, his grip on Crowley tightening in surprise so he was forced to come alone for the ride. They landed among the covers with a muffled thump and there was a half-moment of startled silence before Crowley snickered and Aziraphale chuckled and they both descended into helpless laughter. 

When it petered out all that remained was the wonderful feeling of Crowley spread out on top of him, arms bracketing Azirpahale’s shoulders and so very solid, so _real_. Aziraphale felt safe, safer than he thought he’d ever felt before. He took Crowley’s face in his hands and pulled him down for a kiss, drawing it out, exploring every place where their mouths met and committing them to memory. Crowley tasted of dried herbs and the dark, secret places in caves where strange plants thrived and nothing else could live. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley breathed, sounding as if there was no air at all left in his lungs. There were a few beads of sweat gathered on his brow and it was all Azirpahale could do not to lean up and kiss them away. 

Aziraphale shifted, filled with the urge to move without quite knowing why. Crowley grunted and Aziraphale realized he’d made an effort. He hummed and shifted again, this time with more intent, drawing a half-pained sound from Crowley. 

“You are bastard,” Crowley panted, sounding as if that was a compliment. 

Aziraphale laughed again because he knew that. He’d always been a bit of a bastard and it was an unexpected gift to discover that Crowley liked that about him. 

“Yes,” he agreed[SKIP EXPLICIT SCENE].

He trailed his hands down Crowley’s sides, listening to his corporation and chasing what felt good. He’d never done any of this before, but one did not live on earth for as long as they had and not pick some things up. He held Crowley’s hips in place even as his own began to buck upward, seemingly of their own volition. The friction felt good and they passed a short while chasing that sensation, delighting in the ebb and flow of tension. At some point, Aziraphale realized, Crowley had begun to mutter. Some of it was incomprehensible, especially when Aziraphale found his pulsepoint and leved attention upon it, sucking and nipping in turn.

But the rest of his words were crystal clear. 

“Yes, Aziraphale, please.” 

“You are beautiful.” 

“Please, please, I can not-” 

Eventually, they worked their way further up the bed. Crowley leaned back on his knees so he could slide his hands up Aziraphale’s sides under his shirt, lifting it as he went. Aziraphale returned the favor, lingering over the curve of Crowley’s ribcage under his skin and the way each breath seemed to fill him, expanding the spaces between his ribs. As soon as Crowley’s shirt was off, Aziraphale distracted the demon by kissing his collarbone and as soon as Crowley’s arms began to shake where they supported him, he used his distraction to switch their positions. 

“Angel!” Crowley cried, startled by the rapid movement. He looked up at Aziraphale from his own bed, his hair spread around him like a halo of poppies, eyes massive and hopeful. He said something else, not in the mixed language and therefore incomprehensible, but his tone was so overtly tender that Aziraphale didn’t mind not understanding. He knew what Crowley meant anyway. 

Crowley snapped, removing the rest of their clothes in a single moment. Aziraphale scowled at him for it, he’d been quite enjoying the slow tease and reveal of undressing the human way, but couldn’t summon even fake annoyance when he saw the hunger in Crowley’s eyes.

Aziraphale dropped a short kiss on Crowley’s lips but pulled away before the demon could respond. He kissed his throat, the divot between his collarbones, his sternum and then each nipple. Crowley whined and hissed at each kiss, his fingers tight on Aziraphale’s hips. Aziraphale counted his ribs with kisses, twelve on each side and by the time he reached the base, the noises escaping Crowley were joined in a continuous keen. He tasted the salt of sweat on the taut skin across each hip bone and murmured his appreciation of it into the soft curve of his stomach below his navel. Finally, he’d moved far enough down that Crowley could no longer hold on and the demon could only twist his hands into the covers. 

* * *

Crowley had always known and admired Aziraphale’s penchant for quiet mischief; asking the people in power questions that forced them to reveal their true natures, waiting just long enough that he had to do nothing at all in order to accomplish his goals. He’d never thought that those tendencies would be so deadly in an intimate context. 

When Aziraphale _finally_ reached Crowley’s cock he didn’t take it in hand or lick or kiss or any of the half-formed thoughts Crowley had chased so many times over the years. Instead, he paused and looked up at Crowley from under his eyelashes and fucking Heaven that was a sight Crowley thought would be written on his soul until he ceased to exist.

“Safe?” Aziraphale asked. Crowley blinked once, processing, before nodding frantically. He had never been more okay with anything in his life. Aziraphale smiled and bobbed forward to lay a single kiss on the head of Crowley’s cock. Crowley shuddered, riding the waves of sensation as Aziraphale took his time exploring. He paused every so often to look back up at Crowley, checking in with him and the care was nearly as overwhelming as the mouth on his cock, though he did nothing more than kiss and trace the shape of it with his tongue. After a bit, Crowley gathered the will to unclench one hand from the bed. He groped about until he found the side of Aziraphale’s head and then he was holding on for dear life as Aziraphale continued to dismantle him. He didn’t try to tug or direct or do anything but hold him. The connection helped, gave him an anchor to cling to as Aziraphale worked him closer and closer to the edge. 

Then, Aziraphale took him in his mouth, just the tip at first and then slowly, the whole of him and Crowley keened. Aziraphale responded to the noise with one of his own, a low hum that vibrated through all of Crowley, shattering his control and causing his hips to move in spasmodic little jerks, no matter how hard he tried to keep them still. 

Just before Crowley toppled over the cliff he could feel rapidly approaching, Aziraphale pulled back. Through half-lidded eyes, Crowley watched as he swiped his thumb across his lower lip, catching the excess moisture and then licking his thumb clean. The sight pooled at the base of Crowley's spine. He’d always known Aziraphale was a bit of a hedonist, but seeing him so blatantly enjoy the taste of Crowley, of the evidence of just what effect he had on Crowley… It was earth-shatteringly attractive. Worse, Aziraphale then, without breaking eye contact, pressed a kiss to the skin between Crowley’s navel and the top of the copper curls that surrounded his effort. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley begged. He was already overwrought and Aziraphale had hardly begun. The angel ground his own hips into the bed a few times when he heard the blatant _need_ in Crowley’s voice. “Aziraphale, please. I need- I, ngha, I want you.” He knew his cheeks were darker than his hair, but also knew that he felt like he was going to discorporate then and there if Aziraphale said no. 

Aziraphale stared at him. Swallowed. His lips parted and then closed as he swallowed again. 

“Sure?” he asked. Crowley nodded. He didn’t move. He wanted this more than anything, but only if Aziraphale also wanted it. A slow smile grew on Aziraphale’s face. 

He nodded once in time with Crowley and then shuffled a bit so he was on his knees. His hands were smooth as he ran them up the inside of Crowley’s thighs and Crowley’s legs fell open even as his breath caught. Aziraphale left his right hand at the apex of his right thigh, brushing his thumb back and forth in a gentle caress. He bit his lower lip in concentration as he pressed his left hand down past Crowley’s balls. Crowley scarcely dared to breathe. He’d watched hundreds of masters at their work, sculptors and architects and weavers plying the tools of their trade to create beautiful things. There was a moment when, deep in the act of creation, they looked as close to divine as any human could manage. Crowley craved that moment, for all that he did not miss Heaven, he had been an artist once, still, in some deep part of his soul, counted himself among their number. 

In that moment, Aziraphale put them all to shame. That same very human divinity rolled off him in waves and Crowley could only watch because _he_ was the work that Aziraphale was creating, though he had no idea what form he might take when the angel deemed him complete. 

It was not for the clay to know the potter’s mind. 

“Beautiful,” Aziraphale murmured as he achingly slowly ran one finger around the rim of Crowley’s ass. Then, he paused and looked around the cottage. His eyes alighted on the shelf of foodstuffs that Crowley had Miracled into existence as soon as the idea to invite Aziraphale back here occurred to him earlier. Aziraphale clambered off the bed, but before Crowley could do more than register that he was gone and rise up on one elbow, he was back holding a small container of cooking oil. 

As Aziraphale crawled back onto the bed he set his hand under Crowley’s right knee and lifted it up, continuing forward and pushing his leg towards his chest. The pressure against his chest made his breath come slightly harder even as his cock twitched. He set the jar of oil down and dipped one finger in before returning it to Crowley’s ass. Crowley gasped at the slick sensation, trying to press down, instinctively chasing the feeling. Aziraphale moved with him, so the pressure never changed and Crowley whined. 

Aziraphale seemed content to linger there, gently circling him, sometimes pausing to press lightly before resuming the circling motion. 

“Beautiful,” he said again, leaning down to kiss Crowley. The position trapped his bent leg between them and as soon as their lips met, Aziraphale pushed the full length of his finger into Crowley. Crowley gasped into his mouth and Aziraphale took that opportunity to deepen the kiss even as he began a slow thrust with his finger. They continued on this way until Crowley stopped trembling, muscles relaxing and opening to him. Then, Aziraphale removed his finger. Before Crowley could do more than grunt in protest he returned with two oiled fingers. 

Crowley quite lost track of things for a minute there and when he came back to himself, Aziraphale was watching him, waiting for him to engage again. Crowley smiled up at him and used his free leg to hook Aziraphale closer, until his cock was pressed against Crowley. Aziraphale groaned. Crowley reached down between them and with one hand guided Aziraphale until the head of his cock was pressed against Crowley’s ass. He gave the angel a little nudge of encouragement with his foot and then moaned in pleasure as Aziraphale took the hint and breached him. It stung a little, two fingers hadn’t been enough to fully prepare him for Aziraphale, but he reveled in that. The entire night felt like a dream, the sharp pin pricks of pain were grounding, a reminder that this was real. He kept his foot on Aziraphale, pulling him in until he was fully seated and they were both panting. Aziraphale’s head bowed over Crowley’s chest, his entire body trembling and Crowley couldn’t really move much in this position, but he could reach down and clutch at Aziraphale’s thigh, holding him tight with one hand. 

“Please, Aziraphale,” he whispered into the air between them. Aziraphale looked up. He was wrecked, his lips kiss-swollen and shiny still. He shifted a bit, sending a jolt of pleasure through Crowley. “You can-” He gestured, helpless to find the right word that might convey how badly he needed Aziraphale to _move._

Luckily, it seemed words were not needed. Aziraphale turned his head and lay a kiss on Crowley’s knee. Then, he began to thrust, slowly at first, the aching drag of his withdrawal from Crowley leaving him feeling almost bereft, the sensation matched only by the ecstasy when he pushed forward again. 

And, and- 

It was too much. 

Everything Crowley had ever wanted all in one unexpected evening. They could talk, Aziraphale wanted to touch him, was touching him, and suddenly Crowley was overwhelmed. 

He tried to drag his attention back to the moment, to revel in the feelings again, but all he could think was that this was too fast and what if Aziraphale regretted it? Crowley wasn’t sure he’d survive losing-

“-owley?” 

He came back to the present moment to realize Aziraphale had stopped moving entirely, his brows knitted together in worry. The hand not holding Crowley’s leg up found Crowley’s cheek. He leaned into it. 

“You happy?” Aziraphale asked, halting. 

Crowley nodded, half-frantic because he _was_. This was fine, perfect, everything he’d ever wanted. Except. 

Slowly, he shook his head. 

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale whispered. Slowly, he pulled out of Crowley and lowered Crowley’s leg back down to the bed. He started to back away but that wasn’t what Crowley wanted at all. 

“No!” He cried, lunging upward and grabbing at Aziraphale. The angel froze. 

“No?” 

Crowley shook his head, then nodded, then shook his head again, unsure which gesture would mean he wanted Aziraphale to stay. 

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed. He reached out and held his hand just over Crowley’s chest, but did not allow it to connect. “Safe?” he asked. 

Crowley nodded rapidly. 

“Yes!” He scooted back in the bed, pulling Aziraphale with him until they leaned against the back wall of the cottage, curled around each other. Crowley took a moment to swing his legs over Aziraphale’s lap and twist so his left arm was draped across his chest. 

“Feel good before,” he said, making a sweeping gesture towards where they’d been laying. “I like before. I do.” 

Aziraphale was still frowning. 

“Why stop?” 

Crowley shrugged, unable to answer because he didn’t know himself. It had felt good, better than good, and he’d wanted it, been enthusiastic about it. And then, he wasn’t anymore and he had no idea why. It was deeply, incredibly frustrating. 

“I hurt you?” Aziraphale asked, very quietly. 

“No, no no no.” Crowley wriggled even closer. He reached down and trailed his fingers up Aziraphale’s flagging length, canting his head so he could see Azirpahale’s face as his breath caught. “Gnh. This is perfect. You are perfect.” 

“Then why?” 

Crowley shrugged. “I do not know.” No, that wasn’t enough, Aziraphale deserved as much of the truth as he could manage. “I… I want you,” Crowley said, eyes locked on Aziraphale’s, “I want your body, your mind, your- your words.”

The worried expression on Azirpahale’s face eased a bit. 

“And I yours,” he said. Crowley grinned at him. Aziraphale went on, “Maybe, we go too fast? Too much?” 

Crowley considered that. Was it too fast? Before tonight he would have said that nothing Aziraphale wanted to do with him could ever be more than he’d want, that there was no such thing as ‘too fast’. But, he could still feel that shaking, nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach, no matter how attractive he found the angel. 

“Maybe,” he allowed. Aziraphale nodded. 

“Then, we go slow.” He intertwined the fingers of his right hand with Crowley’s left, lifting them to his face so he could press a lingering kiss to Crowley’s knuckles. 

“Slow,” Crowley agreed. 

Hellfire, but he was grateful no one Below ever really checked in on him anymore. He was sure he was radiating Love and Peace in a rather undemonic way. 

“Slow,” Aziraphale said once more. Then, his stomach growled and the moment was broken. 

Crowley detangled from him and fetched their bowls and the bread from the hearth. Aziraphale took them so he could climb back into the bed and settle back into his position half-sprawled over Aziraphale’s lap. 

“So,” Aziraphale said after a few bites, “The serpent is not you?” 

The rest of the evening passed in conversation, the first they’d truly shared since the stones of Babel shattered around them. 

* * *

Crowley woke to an odd feeling. Something warm in the pit of his gut that spread outward, suffusing his limbs with a languid sort of lassitude he associated with long days in the sun and scales on stone. He wriggled a bit, nestling down further into the strawtack mattress, casting his mind back over what he’d drunk the night before. Clearly he needed to make a habit of it if this was the result. Lazily, he pulled one arm free of the scratchy sheets and stretched it into the air, splaying his fingers wide and enjoying the contrast of the morning chill on overheated skin. His hips were a little sore, as were his shoulders, but it was a good sort of feeling. As if he’d earned it through— 

His thoughts jerked to a sudden halt. 

As if he’d— 

His bed was warm. 

Crowley _never_ woke to a warm bed. It was part of his nature, he absorbed heat, always left wanting, always chilled. He couldn’t— 

Crowley lowered his arm back to the coverlet. He took a deep breath, reveling in the burn of cold air across sore lips, and turned his head to the right. 

“Aziraphale,” it escaped him before he could stop it and Crowley immediately bit his tongue to stop another traitorous word from slipping free. His angel was asleep, curled on his side around the empty space that Crowley had clearly occupied before he woke. His brow was smooth and his mouth slightly open, a little spot of dried drool at the corner. 

_Oh, but Crowley was gone on him_. 

He could hardly stand it. 

Needing to know this wasn’t a dream or a hallucination or some other terrible trick of the mind, Crowley reached out one hand, brushing his thumb as gently as he was able across the soft swell of Aziraphale’s shoulder. The angel sighed, barely more than a thin puff of air, and turned his head further into his pillow. 

Crowley stilled, his hand still held in the air, suddenly afraid of what might happen were Aziraphale to open his eyes and see him there, so close, so clearly enjoying an intimacy he’d not earned. He hadn’t even been able to ask, not properly. They got distracted by their words and then by each other and… oh, somebody, what if Aziraphale regretted some part of it? 

What if he didn’t want the same things Crowley did?

Achingly slowly he pulled his hand back, curling his fingers to a fist until the thin slivers of his nails cut into his palm. 

* * *

_What happened when you got back to Mr. Crowley’s cottage?_

_Ah… Aziraphale do you want to answer that one?_

_Oh! Well, I’m not quite prepared. Do you think I have time to fetch my diagrams? I have a lovely set from the 60s when I was helping the sexual education movement and they—_

_You know that isn’t what I— Bless it, you’re a nightmare. No, we’re not telling you what happened in the lair. You’re almost teenagers. Google it._

_Is it a cottage or a lair when it belongs to a demon?_

_Lair._

_Crowley. It was a cottage. Just like this one is, he’s only being dramatic._

_You’re only being dramatic. It had atmosphere that makes it a lair. I worked hard on that!_

_Did your squire help?_

_Ngph— what?_

_That’s what squires are meant to do, right? Help their Knight with any task they need?_

_Can we be squires?_

_No, you can’t— I mean, why would you—? Aziraphale._

_No, you are quite on your own here, my dear. Why can’t they be squires? You’re still a knight after all. You told me so not so terribly long ago._

_It was nineteen fifty-three and you’re one, too! Why can’t they be your squires?_

_Oh no, I formally renounced my title after failing to slay the dread Black Knight._

_You did?_

_Oh don’t look so shocked. I couldn’t take the chance that Æthelred would send me after you again and the Arrangement was so new. And we’d had such fun, I didn’t want to ruin anything._

_…_

_That’s really gross, Mr. Aziraphale. Are all angels that cheesy?_

_Yes, Pepper, we are._

_No, they aren’t. He’s lying. He’s the worst._

_Gross._

* * *

Footnotes:

1. Old Norse (ON) - modern day Ravenstone, the name of a Saxon invader, and the suffix tūn, meaning "Hrafn's farm or village"↩

2. Old English (OE) - The Danelaw, the region of England that was under the control of the vikings↩

3. OE - The year of the Lord↩

4. ON - The year of the lord↩

5. ON - the term of address for a knight in Old Norse, equivalent to 'sir'.↩

6. 13th Century Norwegian - This literally means "candleman", but was used for the rank that is equivalent to a squire. Given that these are still the early days of the Danelaw, Crowley's position is rather unique as he's acting more like an English Knight than a Norse skutilsveinr (literally "table-men", but roughly a knight who attended the King).↩

7. And in Carthage and in Yanghai and on the side of a nameless road on the edge of the arctic circle and- Well, the point was that Crowley was a particularly slow learner.↩

8. To any scholars of English History, this is Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, who reigned from c. 881-911 AD, not Æthelred I, King of Wessex and father of Alfred the Great. There were, in fact, too many Æthelreds at this point in history to be going on with.↩

9. OE - vikings↩

10. Aziraphale could taste the demonic miracle on the air and knew the pouch had not existed until that very moment.↩

11. Note, what follows relies on an understanding of how pidgins work, if you'd like a more detailed explanation, see the endnotes of the fic.↩

12. Two helmets. Tveir is Old Norse for 'two', helmas is the Old English word for helmet 'helma' with the Old Norse plural marker 's'. At this time in Old English, the correct plural for helma would have been helman↩

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Summary of sex scene:** Crowley and Aziraphale enjoy some fondling and heavy making out on the bed. They begin to have sex, but Crowley becomes overwhelmed and Aziraphale stops, waiting until Crowley can explain/tell him to continue. Crowley does not want to continue, so they stop and are cuddling at the top of the bed. Aziraphale asks why they stopped, he wants to know if he hurt Crowley. Crowley says no and tells him that he doesn’t know why he needed to stop, he is attracted to Aziraphale and wants to be intimate with him. There is a nsfw but non-explict art piece before the spot you return to.[return to text]
> 
> **What’s a pidgin and why is it important?**
> 
> This chapter plays with the idea of a pidgin language. Pidgins arise out of situations when speakers of two languages are in contact and there are no bilingual people to translate. So, GroupA speaks LanguageA and GroupB speaks LanguageB and no one is a speaker of both LanguageA and LanguageB. 
> 
> If these groups are in prolonged or regular contact, say through trade or an invasion, then they will need a way to communicate. What happens is called a pidgin; a simplified way of communicating that draws elements from both languages. These elements are not random, usually, the grammar from one language and the words from the other are used. In this case, the grammar of Old Norse (word order, the endings of words, the lack of case) and the words of Old English. The language the grammar comes from is called the substrate, the language the words come from is called the adstrate or lexifier. 
> 
> An example; **Gothic (substrate):** Guma qinōn frijoþ. (literally ‘the.man(nominative case) the.woman(accusative case) loves’)
> 
> **English (lexifier):** The man loves the woman. 
> 
> **Gothic-English Pidgin:** Man womann loves. 
> 
> So, we have the word order and case endings from Gothic (‘man’ is in the nominative case and so it doesn’t change; woman is in the accusative case so it picks up the “-n” ending) and the words from english. “The” is lost because pidgins simplify and determiners (like the/a/that/etc.) aren’t simple. Usually, if its a vital piece of information, a pidgin with use the word for ‘one’ instead of ‘a’ or ‘the’. 
> 
> Here’s the important bit for this story; a pidgin is no one’s first language. As such, it can be argued that they are not languages at all, but instead are communicative codes with linguistic features. Therefore, the curse, which applies to all natural spoken or signed languages, cannot apply to a pidgin.
> 
> However, I want to be clear that, while there are many languages on earth which are called pidgins (or some variation thereon), the vast majority are not actually pidgins. So, I am not saying that languages such as Tok Pisin or Pijin or Nigerian Pidgin aren’t real languages. They are! Something else has happened there to change their status. I’ll explain that next chapter as its a bit of a spoiler. 
> 
> The chapter title: Ormrinn enn se Cniht (Old Norse: The Serpent, enn = and in both Old Norse and Old English, the Knight (Old English))


	8. Gaderwist Einn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Crowley uses she/her for a portion of this chapter, I’ve left the shape of her corporation there up to the reader. 
> 
> Content warning: I'm posting this now because I've made you all wait for so long, but I want to give you a head's up that this is the absolute lowest point in this story for them. I know that this is a hard week for a lot of people (i'm right there with you) so please take care of yourselves and if you need to pause and come back later, do that! it'll be here when you're ready
> 
> I'm debating jumping straight into the modern day stuff next chapter or doing another chapter with quick scenes like before, so please let me know which you'd prefer <3 (quick scenes would be things like, them each going on and on to shakespeare about the other hoping he'll use their words in a play so they can tell each other things and stuff like that, fairly soft, fluffy moments in history)
> 
> Thank you to [e_juliana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_juliana/pseuds/e_juliana) for the beta!!

_Crowley’s Cottage in the Dene lagu, ġēar hlāfordes 878 ár dróttinsins_

Aziraphale woke the next morning feeling strangely disoriented; it was rare that he slept at all, much less through an entire night, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of the pleasant thrum of energy that stole across his corporation. God’s Divine Light always shone in him so he was only physically tired when he’d pushed himself hard and used too many Miracles, but this energy felt different than that. Her Light was an ever-present well-spring from which he need only duck his head to sip; this feeling was more ephemeral than that. Like a moth perched upon his sleeve, he knew that if he moved too quickly it would be gone, possibly forever. 

“Mfghz.” 

Aziraphale jumped. He’d not expected- He’d never- 

He opened his eyes to see Crowley, curled up on his side on the far side of the bed, back to the wall and knees pressed nearly to his chest. The distance yawned between them. Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably as the events of the previous night rushed back to him. He’d thought they ended the evening on good terms. He could recall the last moments before drifting off to sleep as being entirely intertwined with Crowley, his fingers resting at the base of the demon’s neck, Crowley’s breath warm on his sternum. 

“Crowley?” 

“Hralfe?” 

Despite his confusion, Aziraphale smiled. “Incomprehensible as always,” he said, feeling too fond to allow the old worries of not being understood silence him. Crowley’s eyes opened, goldenrod slits that rapidly closed again as he buried his head into the pillow he clutched in his arms. 

“Early,” he said and like that, the other events of the night before hit Aziraphale. 

“Still speak?” he asked slowly, hardly daring to breathe, to believe that they’d been granted this reprieve. 

Crowley nodded into the pillow. Then, he groaned and shifted, pressing two long fingers to his eyes, rubbing vigorously before allowing his hand to drop back to the bed and looking up at Aziraphale, his face still half-squished into the pillow. The open affection in that gaze was…. A lot. 

Too much. 

Aziraphale looked away. 

He rolled over, turning so his feet landed on the chilled floor. He was still naked, he realized with a sudden flush of awareness. There was no place to hide himself away here, no convenient screen or corner to step around. It had seemed so easy last night, no shame at all in freeing himself from the trappings he wore and falling to Crowley. Aziraphale watched from the corner of his eye as Crowley slithered to the foot of the bed and stood. 

That ease seemed to have shriveled away with the dawn. 

He wished Crowley had been able to fully explain what had gone wrong the previous night. Aziraphale wanted to reach out and touch him, to smooth the little furrow that had appeared between his brow away, to kiss him until he could taste nothing in the world but Crowley. But he didn't dare. Not without understanding the shape of how he’d erred. 

It was always Crowley reaching out before and now, as they dressed in silence, Aziraphale was discovering that he was wholly unprepared for the responsibility. 

When he’d finished with his quilted jacket and breeches, Aziraphale moved towards the pile of armor that still sat neatly atop the table by the door. Just before he could pick up the first piece, Crowley appeared at his side. He’d made it as far as his own breeches and boots, but was still naked from the waist up, the light dusting of freckles atop his shoulders stark in the light that peeked in around the window cover. 

“Please,” Crowley said. He rested one hand atop the armor, tilting his head around so he could meet Aziraphale’s gaze. 

“What?” 

“I, hm, dress you?” The words were halting, but Aziraphale couldn’t tell if it was because Crowley was still figuring out how to string them together in order to be understood or if he was just genuinely nervous. 

“Dress you?” Aziraphale repeated. 

Crowley snorted. “Not you, me.” He paused and shook his head. “No, not me-me, you-me.” 

Aziraphale wondered if perhaps they’d begun speaking different languages again. He shrugged helplessly. 

Crowley crooked a smile at him and picked up the piece of armor. He tapped Aziraphale’s arm and, when Aziraphale extended it on reflex, gently tied it into place. The padded shirt lifted away from Aziraphale’s skin as Crowley pulled at the sewn-in ties, sending shivers down his spine that he was sure had very little to do with the chill of the morning. Crowley’s fingers were slow and careful, pressing to all the weak places in his padded shirt and working little miracles to strengthen them as he went. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale hissed, sure that the demon would be caught and punished for protecting him like that. 

“Aziraphale!” Crowley said back, voice gently mocking. But, he stepped back and picked up his own quilted tunic to dress. 

They fell into a somewhat stilted pattern, each pulling on pieces until they came to a tie or bit they couldn’t quite reach at which point the other would pause in their own work to lean over and help. Aziraphale fought competing desires to either hurry through and step back, avoiding pushing too far and making Crowley uncomfortable again, or clutch the demon close and never let go, wrapping his wings around them both and damn anyone who tried to come between them. 

Crowley grunted, turning and gesturing at his back where Aziraphale could see his armor swayed outward, attached but not secured. He hesitated only the barest second, heart stuttering at the trust shown by a demon turning his unarmored back to an angel. Then, he stepped close and began at the shoulders, pouring the entirety of his being into ensuring that these ties would not fail Crowley. He could not offer the same blessing Crowley had given him, not with the whole of Heaven looking over his shoulder, but he could press a very human sort of benediction into the gaps between the leather cords. Crowley’s head bent forward as Aziraphale worked his way downward, delicate wisps of copper hair escaping his low braid. Oh, how Aziraphale wanted to press his lips to the knot of his spine. He ached with the desire. To kiss there and then once to the left and the right, lingering just long enough on each to make Crowley squirm a bit, to shift and ask for more and- 

Aziraphale’s hands had found Crowley’s hips, resting in the divots between his mail skirt and the plate above. He should remove them, he thought, step back and return to his own dressing. 

They stayed where they were. The index finger on Aziraphale’s right hand twitched and Crowley’s breath hitched. 

“This,” Crowley said into the silence, lifting his hands to gestur at the air around them, “Stupid! I hate it.” 

Aziraphale said nothing. The old habit was hard to break, for all that he knew he could speak now. 

Crowley turned, pulling the leather cords through Aziraphale’s lax fingers. Taking up his hands, Crowley pressed a gentle kiss to his knuckles. “I want talk with you hundred hundred years! And now I ruin it and I sorry.” His grip on Aziraphale’s hands was tighter now, but Aziraphale hardly noticed through his racing heartbeat. “Please, can we forget last night so we can call each other friend?” 

“I do not want to call you friend.” 

Crowley dropped his hands, reeling back and away. His hip hit the table and he hissed but did not stop moving. Why was he- It dawned on Aziraphale how that must have sounded. 

“No no no!” He crossed the space between them in two steps. Crowley wouldn’t look at him. “No, I mean. I love you.” Crowley froze, so still it was like he’d stopped the blood in his veins. “Oh, what relief to say. I think it for so long.” 

“You do?” Crowley staggered away from him, collapsing with a clatter of half-tied armor onto the end of the bed. His face, when he finally looked up at Aziraphale was open, vulnerable in a way Aziraphale had never before seen. 

“I do.” 

* * *

Crowley shuddered. It was almost too much to hear. He’d been so sure when he woke up the second time that he was right, that Aziraphale had decided he was too much, too evil, too wretched to bother with. He’d even convinced himself he was fine with that so long as he was allowed to stay in Aziraphale’s life in some capacity. 

But this? 

It was more than he’d ever dared to dream. 

Aziraphale closed the distance between them and took Crowley’s face in his hands, tilting it up even as he stepped closer, slotting himself between Crowley’s knees. His armored hands felt so different now, larger than the previous night and hard, unyielding in a way that sent shivers down Crowley’s spine. 

“Angel?” Crowley breathed, hardly daring to move. He had no idea what Aziraphale was doing, why he was still here. The instinct to trust Aziraphale was at war with the knowledge he’d held close for so many centuries; Aziraphale might tolerate him, might, one a good day, even enjoy spending time with Crowley, but an angel could never lower themselves to love a demon. Worse, if they did, the demon could never be worthy of that love. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured. They could speak now, but no words could ever hold all the meaning that Aziraphale layered into Crowley’s name. He’d had millennia of practice after all. 

Crowley swallowed. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could think of a single syllable, Aziraphale was kissing him. 

This too was different than the night before. Crowley had woken with his lips slightly swollen, sore and still tingling when he touched them. He’d liked that feeling, as if Aziraphale and their joining had left a mark on him that only he knew was there. Now, as Aziraphale gently pressed closer and closer, never deepening the kiss or even really moving much at all, simply an inexorable force, Crowley realized that he very badly wanted to cry and that the urge was not an upsetting one. 

After an eternity and a single breath had passed, Aziraphale pulled away, but not before giving Crowley’s bottom lip a very gentle nip. The noise that chased Aziraphale when he retreated was closer to a keen than a moan as Crowley was forcibly reminded of just why his lips were sore in the first place. 

“Yes, a true thing,” Aziraphale whispered into the space between them. “Before, I afraid. Tired of being afraid. You not afraid. Never. How can I do anything but try match you? Try brave?”

“I afraid,” Crowley murmured, but Aziraphale clearly did not hear him because he made a questioning noise in his throat and tilted his head. 

Crowley shook himself, attempting to clear the cobwebs away and slip back into his care-free demon persona once again. “Nothing.” Crowley smiled up at Aziraphale and turned his head to one side, pressing into Aziraphale’s left palm. Then, he gave in to his baser instincts and placed a delicate kiss on the meat of Aziraphale’s thumb. He left his lips there, just barely touching so that he could feel the heat that blazed through Aziraphale light his lips aflame with every movement. “I tempt you? The pure angel look kind on demon.” 

Aziraphale laughed. “I can say the same to you.” 

“Ah. No! Tempt my job.”

“Pity. Think I good tempter.” 

He was, that was the awful thing. Aziraphale knew exactly what he was doing to Crowley and did not seem to care. Crowley tried to think around the love-drunk haze that filled his mind, to find some comeback that might leave him the slightest shred of dignity, but even as he gathered the words, Aziraphale leaned in and kissed him again and all hope of coherence was lost. 

* * *

When Crowley and Aziraphale finally dressed and made it out of the cottage, they were greeted by the odd sight of a Viking and a pair of Englishmen seated on low logs around a broad rock. Crowley arched one eyebrow as Alfric rolled a small set of stones towards the other two men and then cursed loudly as the one who’d attended Aziraphale the previous day laughed. 

“Claiburne and Dale,” Aziraphale said quietly, pointing to his own squire and then the newcomer in turn. Claiburne scooped up the stones and rattled them about his hands for a moment before releasing them. Alfric groaned again. He pulled a small satchel from his belt and tossed it to Claibrune who grinned at him and handed it to Dale. Crowley’s scowl froze on his face when he saw the way the squires’ hands lingered, Claiburne’s fingertips just barely brushing the outside of Dale’s thumb. Aziraphale clearly sensed his sudden tension because he stepped a bit closer. The warmth that radiated from him seemed to sweep through Crowley in a single violent surge, taking with it every foul feeling he’d managed to muster. 

“Alfric!” Crowley tried to snap, hoping to recover some semblance of his usual dangerous aura, but he feared it came out rather closer to a gentle summons. Alfric appeared all too happy to abandon the game, bouncing to his feet and crossing the space between them. He was moving well that morning, despite the mist and cold, another fact Crowley told himself he didn’t care about. Why should he care that the boy’s hips were finally showing signs of healing, of strength, after years of subtle Miracles? 

A proper demon didn’t care about those sorts of things. 

Aziraphale shifted back a bit, so Crowley was closer to the approaching squire, and Crowley resigned himself to the knowledge that he wasn’t a proper demon by any stretch of the imagination. He really didn’t think Hastur’s heart would stutter like his own did at such a simple gesture of trust, if he even recognized it in the first place. 

“Yes, herra?” Alfric asked when he was close enough. From the corner of his eye Crowley spotted Claiburne and Dale tense at hearing the Viking tongue. 

“I’ll be taking the English here to see the Serpent,” he said, jerked a thumb towards Aziraphale who stared at them blandly, a slight smile on his face for all that Crowley knew he once again didn’t understand what was being said. 

“Of course, herra,” Alfric nodded. “I’ll go get your sword and-”

Crowley flapped one hand to shut him up. “No, no, you’re not needed today. I’ll be taking him alone.” 

Alfric stood very still. His eyes narrowed suspiciousy as he looked Aziraphale over. 

“Herra, the Serpent is…,” he chose his words carefully, “Dangerous. You know that.” His hand rose to his left hip, the one that Crowley knew still pained him and likely always would, no matter how many Miracles Crowley doled out. Infernal wounds weren’t meant to be healed at all, much less by infernal means. 

The gestures softened Crowley’s annoyance. He might not appreciate a human barely out of his childhood trying to mother him, but he understood fear. “We’ve nothing to worry about, Alfric,” he said much more quietly than before, “He’s a Holy man, one of the holiest.” 

“But, herra, a Christian?” Alfric’s distaste was clear and Crowley had to stifle his laugh. The boy was just trying to look out for him. It was endearing, in a (very annoying) way. Aziraphale seemed to sense that Crowley was being chided, because he covered his mouth with his hand and turned away, his eyes sparkling with mirth. 

“Yuk it up, angel,” Crowley muttered.

“Herra?” 

“I’ll be fine, Alfric,” he said, wondering just what he did to deserve this. “If I’m not and he betrays me I promise to make sure the Serpent eats him first.” 

Alfric wasn’t pleased, but he was a good lad under all the strange mothering and he did not argue further, muttering his assent and turning to make his way back to his shack on the opposite end of the clearing. 

Crowley caught a glimpse of Aziraphale smiling at him. “Oh, no smile. You need shoo them.” He pointed to Claiburne and Dale who already looked mutinous at the idea of leaving their knight with aViking. 

Aziraphale was far too proper to groan, but he did sigh heavily and his smile shifted to something so very put-upon that Crowley had to busy himself with adjusting his scabbard to avoid giving in to his desire to kiss Aziraphale again. 

* * *

“You said you not Serpent?” Aziraphale asked as they made their way through the wood. The mist from the previous day was still around, clinging to every surface. They’d hardly been walking half the morning and Aziraphale already wanted to return to Crowley’s bed. 

Crowley nodded, picking his way through a close copse of thorny vines and turning to lift them up for Aziraphale. 

“But Serpent real?” Aziraphale had been so sure that the mysterious dragon was in fact Crowley in a bad mood. Dragons weren’t real, after all. They were fairy tales built upon the cultural memory of a Great Serpent at the dawn of their species.

Crowley glanced over at him, rubbing one hand down the back of his neck. “Beelzebub order me to cause trouble. I Serpent, I should…,” he trailed off and gestured at the forest around them. “I hate cold. Bad shaped like me, worse shaped like snake.” 

Aziraphale hummed sympathetically. He’d never had Crowley’s issues with cold weather, but he’d seen how miserable it made the demon enough times to understand. 

“So, I, uh, outsource?” 

Aziraphale paused in the middle of the path. He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. 

“Crowley,” he said slowly, “What does outsource mean?” 

“Ha, uh.” Crowley spun on one heel in a clear attempt to look cool and casual that fell terrifically flat. “I, hm, show you. Yeah. Better to see.” 

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes as Crowley shot him a winning grin and hurried forward. 

“Almost there!” 

It turns out that ‘outsource’ actually means ‘borrow a hellhound when no one is looking and offer it all the meat it can eat and mead it can drink in exchange for going a bit scaly and sometimes breathing fire at passing knights’. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, looking up at the massive beast currently sprawled on its back, all four feet in the air. 

“Yes?” Crowley asked, the picture of demonic innocence. 

“I-,” he paused and sighed, resisting the urge to either rub at his eyes or kill his companion. 

“Right!” Crowley chirped, clearly divining that he should do something. “Aziraphale, meet Houndly.” 

“You _name_ it?” 

Crowley leaned back, hand on his chest as if Aziraphale had landed a blow, but he was still smiling. “Of course I name,” he said, “Houndly good, uh, Hellhound.” 

Above them, draped across the combined branches of three trees and probably weighing the better part of an entire roman century, Houndly snorted in his sleep. His… paws? Aziraphale wasn’t sure if they counted as paws given their size and the way the individual toes had lengthened to something that approximated a lizard’s structure, to say nothing of the lack of fur to be found anywhere on the beast. His _feet_ had begun to twitch. 

“Aw, look. He dreams,” Crowley said, seemingly unbothered by Aziraphale’s unamused look. 

“How sweet.” 

Crowley unbuckled his belt and scabbard, handing them to Aziraphale before trotting across to the sturdiest of the trees and scrambling up the side. Aziraphale clutched the sword close, sure that he was about to witness Crowley snapped up by the hellhound’s massive jaws. There was some rustling and shifting and then the demon reappeared crouched atop the hellhound’s chest. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale hissed as loudly as he dared. Crowley looked down at him and held two thumbs up. Then, the hellhound shifted and Crowley collapsed flat to its chest holding on for dear life. 

As soon as it stopped moving, Crowley crawled up towards its face, tapping at its cheek until the great beast’s eyes opened. It smacked it’s mouth a few times and then stretched, sending Crowley scrambling for handholds again. Finally, it craned its head around and looked at Crowley with one huge eye. 

“Houndly!” Crowley greeted. Aziraphale held his breath, sure the demon was about to be summarily discorporated. But, the Hellhound only wuffed at him and then whined, nosing at Crowley expectantly. 

Aziraphale’s shoulders relaxed as he watched Crowley try to negotiate holding on to the hellhound and fighting off it’s ever more eager investigation of his armor. The demon was saying something, babbling away and Aziraphale suddenly wished that anyone besides him were seeing this; how could Heaven continue to say that demons were wholly evil when there was one who spoke so softly to a beast, who reached out to scratch it behind its oddly floppy scaled ears and laughed when he received a wet lick in return? 

After a few minutes Crowley clambered over the hellhound’s shoulder and dropped to a lower branch and then the ground in one fluid motion. 

“Well?” Aziraphale asked. 

Before Crowley could respond, the Hellhound rolled over with a great creaking of over-burdened branches and followed him to the ground. It landed with a dull thud, sending the mist around it swirling in chaotic patterns. Crowley patted its side as it looked at Aziraphale curiously. On the ground the beast looked even more surreal; Crowley’s head only reached its shoulder and the head was easily as large as Aziraphale’s torso. There were two stunted, leathery wings folded against its back and even as Aziraphale watched, its tail began to… wag. 

“Well,” Crowley said, “Go on, then.” 

And, to Aziraphale’s shock, the Hellhound did. It chuffed at Crowley one final time and then turned on one colossal foot and trotted away, tail still waving through the air happily. 

“Well, that for sure, ah, not usual sight,” Aziraphale said as diplomatically as he was able. 

Crowley hummed. He was looking at the ground, kicking over leaf litter and moving small broken branches out of the way. 

“What you do?” 

“Aha!” Crowley stooped and came up with a shiny black thing in his hands. He made his way back over to Aziraphale and handed it to him, taking his belt back. While he got readjusted Aziraphale studied what he’d been handed. It was just a bit larger than his palm and hard as stone. When he rubbed it against the edge of his cloak to wipe off the grime, it shone like volcanic glass save the undertone was deepest red rather than green. It was entrancing. 

“What?” He looked up to see Crowley watching him with an unreadable expression. He held his newly empty hands out and took it back from Aziraphale. Stepping close he unlooped Aziraphale’s shield from where he’d slung it over his shoulder. 

“Hellhound scale,” Crowley explained as he pressed it to the center of the shield. “Proof you kill the beast.” 

“A lie?” 

Crowley shook his head, looking very serious. “No, no lie. The Serpent fall before you. Always.”

Aziraphale’s throat was suddenly too tight to speak. 

“And,” Crowley smiled at him, though his eyes were still very serious, “Protect you.” He tapped one fingernail against the scale, now affixed to the very center of Aziraphale’s shield. “Stop hellfire.” 

Aziraphale dropped the shield and pulled Crowley into a searing kiss. Their helmets clanged together and their armor dug into each other uncomfortably but Aziraphale did not care. He was overcome by the depth of his love for Crowley. The demon hadn’t said it back and Aziraphale was fairly sure that was because love of that sort was outside of the realm of possible emotions a demon could feel. But, he clearly cared for Aziraphale as much as he was able and that was enough, that would always be enough. 

* * *

2 Months Later

* * *

Crowley looked up at the knock on the door. He glanced at the window, the sun was still high in the sky. Alfric didn’t tend to come around until much later in the day now that Crowley had given up the whole Black Knight lark[1]. He didn’t begrudge the boy the time he was spending in the village these days. At least there were people there, things to do. 

The days had been peaceful, if boring, since Aziraphale left. 

He hadn’t wanted to, though that brought Crowley little comfort in practice. But, he’d been assigned to Aethelred by Heaven and couldn’t abandon that post, no matter how he desired otherwise. Crowley might have _thoughts_ about ways they could both do a little less work in the long run, but he’d yet to work out how they could not be where Heaven or Hell told them to be. He wouldn’t want Gabriel or whoever popping in to see Aziraphale and finding him leagues from his posting after all. 

All of his plans hinged on one very important fact; nothing whatsoever should or could be done that might risk Aziraphale’s Fall. 

Crowley would rather throw himself in an ocean of holy water than be the cause of Heaven’s best angel losing his faith[2]. 

He was just debating whether leaving his warm cocoon was worth the momentary amusement of confusing whatever poor villager had decided to come bother him when the knock came again. 

“What?” Crowley called, tugging his blankets a bit tighter. He was _cold,_ dammit.

“Crowley?” 

Crowley’s eyes widened, his heart racing, as he launched himself from the bed, quite forgetting that he’d been wrapped in a blanket at all and thus becoming hopelessly tangled. He crashed to the floor with a yelp and a string of curses and began struggling to free himself, hissing and kicking at the blessed fucking-

“All right there, Crowley?” 

He looked up to see Aziraphale smiling down at him, a bemused look on his face. 

“Aziraphale.” He tried for casual cool and was fairly positive he pulled it off[3]. 

“Need help?” 

“Hgnfnah,” Crowley responded, because no-thank-you he did not need help escaping from a blanket of all things. He snapped and the blanket found its way back to the bed, neatly spread across the foot as if it had been there all along. Then, standing and brushing himself off, he asked, “Why here? What about Aethelred?” 

Aziraphale blushed. He twisted his fingers together as he spoke, “Ah well, you see, I, ah. He send me on quest. Find God or Holy Grail.” Crowley snorted. Everyone knew the Grail was currently living in a small village at the very southern tip of the Carpathians and quite happy to live out her life as the previous six generations of Grails had; herding sheep and not being used as political currency. 

Aziraphale nodded. “Yes, ridiculous. So, I think. Well, Crowley still here. Maybe I can, ah, not bother Grail or God and stay… with… you.” 

He sounded terribly unsure by the end and Crowley wished he was capable of finding words faster because he hated the nervous look on Aziraphale’s face, as if he was expecting Crowley to laugh at his offer. 

“I want to see what you do, if that all right,” Aziraphale concluded in a small voice. 

Crowley nodded, then realizing that Aziraphale was still looking at the floor, stepped close and lifted the angel’s chin with one hand. 

“Always. I always want you with me,” he said. Then, realizing just how much of his heart he’d just revealed, “It not much. But, I think you like.” 

“Oh?” Aziraphale already sounded calmer, happier. He’d reached out and wrapped an arm around Crowley’s waist, drawing him close and trapping his hand between them. 

“I write bibles,” Crowley said, proud of his latest scheme. “Lies, wrong stories. Humans argue about them. Souls for Hell and I do not leave home.” 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale’s scandalized face swept away any remaining tendrils of malaise that had clung to Crowley, leaving him feeling light and, dare he even think it, happy. 

“Aziraphale!” He said back in the same exact tone, drawing forth a smile, even through the angel’s offense. Then, softer, “I glad you came back.” 

“Truly?” 

“Truly.” 

* * *

4 Months Later

* * *

Crowley woke before Aziraphale, a rare enough occurrence that she luxuriated in feeling his warm arms wrapped around her for a few moments despite knowing there was still work to be done and this was a rare opportunity to do it. So, she remained there, curled against Aziraphale for another few breaths, before extracting herself and sliding to the end of the bed. Aziraphale stirred and huffed, reaching out for her in his sleep and it took nearly everything in Crowley not to give in and crawl back to his side. 

It helped, knowing that he would love the gift she’d been secretly laboring on these last few months, stealing scraps of moments before he woke or when he went to the village or for a walk. And it was nearly done. Really, she could have called it complete anytime, but she’d hesitated, adding more detail to the edges and finding spots where the color had faded because she’d not yet figured out how to Miracle the ink properly. She knew he would love it, but still she hesitated because she’d never given him anything like this before. 

Aziraphale said he loved her and Crowley wanted to say it back so badly. It felt like the words were there, just waiting for the right moment. 

She wanted that moment to be when she gave him the—

“Oh, Crowley, book pretty.” 

Crowley jerked around, startled from her thoughts to see Aziraphale leaning over her to peer at the illuminated manuscript spread across her workstation. She hadn’t heard him get up. She resisted the urge to slam the book shut. He’d seen it now, might as well tell him it was his. 

Crowley sifted to the side, so Aziraphale would be able to see more of the book and pushed it towards him a little. She’d been fiddling with the first illustration, trying to make it perfect and now that Aziraphale was looking at it all she could see were the flaws. 

It was meant to be Eden, but the greens were too pale and the paper too rough. She’d tried to use gold to make Aziraphale glow, but thought the effect was only that he looked like he was surrounded by a block of ruddy cheese. She flushed, realizing what a terrible idea this had been. 

“This… us?” Aziraphale asked very quietly. He brushed his fingers across the dried ink, following the line of the drawn Aziraphale’s wings back to where the ink-stain Serpent of Eden was coiled high in a tree. Crowley nodded, words caught in her throat. 

“Beautiful,” Aziraphale murmured. He leaned in, eyes drinking in the way Crowley had tried to show the way his flaming sword had lit his feathers, the spark of that same flame reflecting in the Serpent’s eyes. 

“For you,” Crowley said. She looked away from him as she went on, unwilling to see him deny her gift when he realized that she’d spent so long making something so unworthy. “If you want.” 

A sharp intake of air and then Aziraphale was cupping the side of her face, his fingers broad across her cheekbone. 

“I want,” he said lowly, “This book too blasphemous for the world. I can protect.” 

The humor in his voice was a knife, lancing the boil of Crowley’s worries and she deflated with a long sigh. 

“Okay,” she said, smiling up at him. Then, suddenly eager to show off her work, she yanked him down into the chair beside her and slid the book closer to him. 

Aziraphale smiled and gave his fingers a little stretch before picking up the book. He made an appreciative sound when he saw the delicate engraving of the cover (good work, if Crowley did say so herself). Then, he flipped it open and his face fell. 

“I can not read,” he said, very quietly. A bolt of terror ripped through Crowley because that made no sense. They’d both been able to read things before. She distinctly remembered standing beside a monument in Rome and rolling her eyes as Aziraphale read what they both knew to be lies. With shaking hands, Crowley snatched up another of the bibles she’d been vandalizing from her pile, thrusting it into his hands. 

Aziraphale took it and closed his eyes as he opened the cover, there was a brief pulse of something and Crowley knew that he’d just prayed. She didn’t even mind, if she weren’t so blindly terrified, she might do something similar. 

The cover creaked just a bit as it opened. Aziraphale looked down. 

And shook his head. 

The fear in Crowley’s gut rises into her throat. She knew they couldn’t write to each other, but these aren’t her words. She’d been so careful to copy everything exactly, even going into town to ask one of the few literate locals to write out the words that burned her fingers to touch[4]. Why couldn’t Aziraphale— Was the curse getting worse? No, they could still talk, she’d understood Aziraphale. She didn’t know wh— 

Aziraphale stood, knocking his chair back to the floor with a clatter. He grabbed up the large pack he’d arrived with all those months ago and dug around for a minute before coming up with a tiny volume bound in dark leather. He opened it to a random page and read, voice strange and fluid after being halting for so long. 

“Praise be to the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” His voice shook as he read and Crowley’s ears burned, just a bit so even though she could not understand what he read, she knew God was involved. 

As soon as he finished, Aziraphale closed the book and sighed. Crowley understood. For a moment she’d been terrified that he’d somehow lost the ability to read altogether. But, he hadn’t, which meant she was still confused. 

“Here,” Aziraphale said, once more drawing her from her thoughts. He was holding out the little volume, something pinched and terrible about his face. 

Normally, Crowley would have argued, would have said that she did not read and left it at that. But, he held her gaze and his hand was shaking and Crowley took the book. 

She opened it and looked down and the words were nonsense. It was like seeing the letters she knew, only upside down and backwards and all out of order. The sensation that she should understand but did not, grew and Crowley silently shook her head. She handed the book back to 

Aziraphale with one hand while wiping her eyes with the other. 

“It all right, love,” Aziraphale said very quietly. “The book still beautiful.” 

He glanced down at the little book in his hands and his breath stuttered to a stop. 

“I— I can not read it.” He flipped from one page to another, increasingly frantically, but Crowley knew it would make no difference. She’d just figured it out. Talking was all about information, they couldn’t give each other that information directly. They’d been able to read the same things before in the same way they’d both been able to understand the squires or any other human. It wasn’t about the language itself, it was about the source. 

Crowley swore, looking at Aziraphale as he set the useless book down and smoothed his hand across the cover mournfully, that she would never again touch another book. Aziraphale loved them too much for her to dream of taking that from him. 

“It fine,” Aziraphale said after a long few minutes of silence. He picked up the chair he’d toppled and tried to smile at Crowley. “Thank you for book.” 

Crowley quietly made the little book that neither could read disappear but when she offered to take the one she’d illuminated away, thinking about how it was beyond useless now, Aziraphale shook his head. He didn’t explain, but Crowley caught him paging through it on more than one occasion, skipping anything with words to linger on the pictures with a tiny smile on his face. 

* * *

1 Year Later

* * *

“Look!” Aziraphale laughed as he grabbed at Crowley’s arm, pulling him close. “Viking and English!” Crowley looked around hoping they weren’t about to be running for their lives, but all he saw were the same humans who’d been trickling into the little village for months now. He cast about, looking for who might have Aziraphale so excited. 

“Yes,” he eventually said, giving up. They’d only popped into town to check on Aziraphale’s (former) squire and Crowley was eager to get back to their plans for the day (he’d, perhaps, scouted out a lovely little spot to drink mead and get more than a little handsy). 

Aziraphale, however, knew him too well for that. He rolled his eyes and took Crowley’s hand[5].

“There,” he said, indicating a young couple. 

The man was tall and pale, with hair nearly as light as Aziraphale’s and the sort of gangly, wide-set limbs that spoke of future strength once he managed to stop growing vertically. He had one arm wrapped around the shoulders of a much shorter woman. Everything about her seemed to have been designed in contrast to her beau; raven-dark hair, an arched nose that reminded Crowley of Rome, and the sure gait of an English-woman who knew her path. 

Now that Aziraphale had pointed it out, Crowley could see that there no longer appeared to be a divide between the English and the Norse. The young man and woman were hardly the only mixed couple and even as he watched Crowley spotted a pack of children go racing by; their voices a riot of Norse and English and the strange mix of the two that Crowley and Aziraphale used with each other.

“Oh,” Crowley said, feeling strangely undone by all this. 

Aziraphale’s hand tightened in his own. They stood on the edge of the square and watched the humans for a while until the sun was high above and Crowley realized they were wasting the day. Sunny days were few and far enough between here that they couldn’t afford to miss a moment. 

“Come on,” he said, jerking his head towards the stall where a merchant was selling small barrels of mead. “We have plans.” 

* * *

7 Months Later

* * *

Aziraphale’s head was thrown back in laughter, long and loud, and even from across the square Crowley could see Claiburne’s bright blush. He said something that Crowley could not hear and sent Aziraphale into another round of laughter. Dale poked his head out of the open stall where the forge was located, face shining with sweat despite the cool morning. Aziraphale greeted him warmly and Crowley smiled to himself because he was happy to see the former squires so settled. He and Aziraphale had both worried when they appeared last at the end of the spring, hand-in-hand and declaring that they’d decided this was the perfect place to start anew[6]. 

Seeing Aziraphale settle in for a nice long visit, Crowley casts about, looking for something to entertain himself with until the sun is high enough that he can reasonably steal Aziraphale away for lunch. 

The village had grown rapidly in the last two years, from a random collection of shacks barely fit to keep out the biting cold of winter, to a thriving community. The people were now an entirely mixed lot, Norse and English and Celt, all tangled together seemingly without regard for who originated where. There was a little shrine on the Eastern edge of the square that Crowley knew from painful experience to avoid and it was a wonder to see the Christian icon wearing Norse clothing decorated with tangled celtic knots. 

Crowley wasn’t one to take credit for work that wasn’t his[7] but he was downright proud of this little village. Perhaps one day he’d have to stop lying on his reports and actually do a bit of tempting, if this was the sort of harmony humans were capable of. 

He pushed off the low stone wall he’d been leaning on and started a slow amble around the square, pausing to scoop up a few pastries from the baker and a bottle of something strong and fruity in all the ways he’d learned Aziraphale liked. 

Just ahead of him, there was a young mother weaving with a toddler on her knee. The child grabbed at the edge of her sleeve, and began chewing on it, watching her with wide eyes as she narrated what she was doing. Crowley paused to watch, close enough to hear but far enough away he’d not alarm the woman. 

“Weft go up,” she said in a sing-song voice. It was odd to hear someone speaking that way with a child. Crowley was used to it from adults, he and Aziraphale had even joined in once or twice, for all that they were each fluent in any given language the humans might choose to use. But, he’d never before heard one use the mixed way of speaking with their own child. It was a good idea, he supposed, there was no reason to wait when the village was so mixed that they’d clearly need it as soon as they could speak. 

“Wef?” The toddler asked, reaching out one pudgy hand to touch the weaving. The mother nodded and slowly guided their joined hands upward. 

“Hello, dear,” Aziraphale whispered, sidling up to Crowley and leaning close. Crowley shifted far enough to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, but he did not allow his eyes to waver from the child. 

“You get what you need?”

From the corner of his eye he watched Aziraphale nod. They’d each had word from their own bosses recently and Aziraphale needed supplies for the day-trip he’d be taking for his assigned blessing[8]. 

“Go up,” The mother in front of them repeated. 

“Wef go up,” the toddler said. The mother laughed and kissed the riot of dark curls atop their head. 

Crowley grinned. He’d always loved watching humans learn. 

“That one grow into little devil,” he said, tilting his head towards the pair. 

Aziraphale made a strange choking sound. Crowley turned to look at him, one eyebrow arched. 

“Angel?” 

Aziraphale’s eyes were wide and shining as he stared at Crowley. He whispered something incomprehensible and Crowley realized why Aziraphale looked so gutted. 

Whatever reprieve they’d found was over. 

A bitter laugh slipped from Crowley’s lips. Of course it was. They weren’t allowed to be happy or together or anything but mindless drones. Aziraphale closed his eyes, suddenly looking every single one of their years on Earth. Crowley knew the feeling. 

The walk back to their cottage was silent and uncomfortable. When they arrived they each gathered their things. Every so often one of them would begin to gesture as they always had in the past, asking for the other to hand them something or step aside. All meanings they’d easily managed before. 

They were out of practice and it all felt stilted, awkward. The requests seemed to fall short. Eventually, Aziraphale sighed and gave up halfway through pointing at _something_ to Crowley’s left that he couldn’t seem to guess, no matter how many times he tried to follow the angel’s gaze. Aziraphale’s hands hung limp by his sides, every line of him defeated and closed off seeming. 

Suddenly Crowley was furious at the entire situation. He surged across the space between them and wrapped Aziraphale in a tight hug, pressing a firm kiss into the side of the angel’s head as Aziraphale’s arm’s came up to hold him close. Crowley left his face there after, breathing in deeply, trying to memorize every bit of how this felt. 

* * *

Aziraphale walked to the village in a haze. He’d left his armor at thei- at Crowley’s cottage. He did not feel like the knight who’d set out from Æthelred’s court years before and the idea of putting on that armor again was anathema. He wore his fur lined cape because Crowley had stopped him at the door and silently draped it over his shoulders, dropping a kiss on his forehead before stepping back. 

(He’d been smiling, a terrible rictus grin that _hurt_ to look at. Aziraphale had turned away and felt ill for it.) 

He found Claiburne outside the blacksmith’s forge, working on etching the delicate scales of a serpent into the hilt of a blade. He looked up when Aziraphale approached, taking in the cloak and pack and slump of his shoulders. 

“You’re not coming back, are you?” 

Aziraphale shook his head. “No,” he said, “I’ve been called back to my people.” It was a lie, but he’d also not done his job for two years and keenly felt the need to do some of Her work, to engage with something that might help him hurt just a little bit less. 

Claiburne glanced back towards the building. 

“Dale won’t miss me,” he said, “I’ll walk you to the boundary stone.” Though Aziraphale had known that Claiburne would not be leaving this town the moment Dale asked for Garanwyn to release him from service, it was still a bitter tonic to swallow. He wanted to be happy for the young men (he _was_ happy for them, really). He wanted to smile and clap Claiburne on the shoulder and wish him well. But, when he opened his mouth to say so, what came out was; 

“You know, I never did hear the end of your story about the Black Knight.” 

Claiburne’s returning smile was just as forced as Aziraphale’s cheer. “Ah, well.” He chuckled, voice so much deeper than Aziraphale recalled it being. Humans grew so blessed quickly. “Where was I?” 

“He’d just died and been granted a boon.” 

“Right. So he goes before God and says that he’d like for his home to be safe and his people protected. God tells him that this is not possible for not even God can promise that. The Black Knight is quiet for a long time, thinking and when God asks him what he’s thinking about he smiles.” 

“Oh?” Though they’d spoken on a few occasions, Aziraphale had only personally _met_ God the one time and he’d not exactly been up to smiling at the moment of his Creation, there was far too much to process, to say nothing at all of his lack of mouths with which to smile at the time. 

Claiburne nodded rapidly. “Yes! He smiles and he thanks God for the boon but if it’s all the same he’d like to go back, please.”

Aziraphale swallowed against his suddenly tight throat. 

“God tells him that that’s not how death works. You can’t just say no. But the Black Knight is wily and clever and determined to protect the people he loves, so he thinks and thinks and eventually he looks up at God again and he smiles again. Now, God has learned to be a bit wary of this Knight but allows him to speak. Lord, the Black Knight says, thank you for your boon and for this audience but I must decline.” 

Aziraphale stopped walking, staring at Claiburne. 

“He… told God no thank you?” 

Claiburne was smiling. “He did. I imagine God was probably making a similar expression to you.” He paused and winced, rapidly making the sign against evil before continuing. “Apologies. I’m unused to- Never mind. The Black Knight bows to God and turns around. Just before he leaves the room, God asks him what he’s going to see in Heaven first, he’s earned his eternal rest after all. The Black Knight turns around and looks at the Lord’s throne room, he’s crying but he’s smiling as well. I think, he tells the Lord, that I have seen more than any human could ask and I’m content. I cannot remain here in bliss knowing those I swore to defend might suffer for it.” 

Aziraphale felt strangely panicked for the fictional knight. They still hadn’t moved from the center of the main path through the village and people were parting around them, like water rushing past unexpected rocks in a stream. 

“The Black Knight walks out of Heaven with no thought save that he hopes he might see those he loves one last time before his soul ceases to exist. God watches as he slips out the gates and falls to the Earth and then as he goes to his family and the village in the walls of his castle. He does not fade. God watches as he weeps when his daughter dies in childbirth and as he rests one intangible hand on the new babe’s head, praying for him to have a long and happy life, and the Black Knight does not fade. God watches as he leaves his castle and rejoices with the people when they have festivals, as he tries to guide those who are lost in the wood that surrounds the village, silent voice ragged with desperation, and the Black Knight does not fade. Finally, God grants him the boon he’d been promised. He will never fade, never have to leave his land or his people, not until the last of his memory is lost.”

Aziraphale drew a shuddering breath, feeling as if he’d just woken from a dream. 

“Well,” he managed. “Thank you for telling me.” He gathered up a few threads of divinity and deftly wove them into Claiburne, sealing the blessing as tightly as he could. 

“Of course, Sir Aziraphale.” Claiburne seemed to recognize that this was goodbye, but clearly did not wish to say it. “Mind how you go, sir.” 

Aziraphale smiled at him. “And you, son.” 

* * *

_Oh, oh dear. I’m so sorry, I never thought-_

_Why wouldn’t they be sad, angel. It’s a bloody fucking tragedy._

_Well, no, not really. After all, it ends with a marriage, doesn’t it? That’s a comedy by all definitions, my dear._

_Yeah. Those are the faces of kids enjoying a comedy._

_Perhaps we should leave the rest for another time? I would hate-_

_No!_

_Please! We want to know what happened!_

_Actually, I think I’d feel worse if you stopped now._

_Well, if you’re sure? I am going to insist on a tea break before we continue._

_Mr. Aziraphale?_

_Yes, Adam?_

_I know it all ends happily because you’re both here and you’re together and you can talk right, but how long before God realized the mistake She made?_

_I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean._

_How much longer did you have to… I dunno, hurt?_

_Oh._

_Sorry to break it to you, kids. But, She never did._

_Now, Crowley, that’s not entirely—_

_No, angel. It’s the truth. God’s a bloody self-righteous bint and She’d as soon as drown the world as admit She made a mistake._

_You don’t mean that._

_I bloody well do and you know it. You nearly died, Aziraphale! And I- How much longer was She going to wait? Because, if She’s all-knowing then She’d known all along that we were caught up in that fucking curse._

_Dear, the children…._

_Right. Fuck. Sorry. Uh, yeah. A break for tea. Then, we’ll get back to it._

* * *

Footnotes:

1. The teen’s hip still needed help now and again and Crowley didn’t plan to move on until he was entirely whole again. He still felt awful that Alfric had been wounded in the first place. Houndly hadn’t meant to hurt him, there was just a bit of a learning curve in going from roughly dog-sized to roughly house-sized.↩

2. It should be noted, that were Crowley a bit less inclined to wallowing he might have thought about how he’d not really lost his own faith, not in the ways that mattered. This thought might have led him to other, more dangerous thoughts. But, he was a champion wallower and those sorts of thoughts would not occur to him for a good few centuries yet.↩

3. Reader, he did not. Never has a demon been as far from “casual cool” as Crowley in that moment.↩

4. She always hated that. She could say Yeshua’s name just fine, but reading or writing it? Right out.↩

5. Even a year and a half later, this still sent a thrill down Crowley’s spine. He hoped he never grew accustomed to it↩

6. “After all,” Dale had told Crowley as they watched Claiburne and Aziraphale embrace, “If Sir Aziraphale can find happiness with a norse heathen, why shouldn’t we?” Crowley had coughed to cover his suddenly tight throat and nodded.↩

7. Ha, a lie if ever he told himself one.↩

8. Crowley’s Lower Downs, meanwhile, were very pleased with his efforts to spread chaos through slight alterations to holy books and he was told to keep up the bad work.↩

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **What happened? Why can't they understand each other any more?**
> 
> Remember last chapter I said "A pidgin is no one’s first language. As such, it can be argued that they are not languages at all, but instead are communicative codes with linguistic features. Therefore, the curse, which applies to all natural spoken or signed languages, cannot apply to a pidgin." ? Well, that's what happened. When a pidgin becomes the first language of a community, it becomes a natural language. This means that there are native speakers and the language is going to become more complex and nuanced as those speakers expand the domains where it is used. This process is called 'creolization', aka, when a pidgin becomes a creole (a natural language resulting from the prolonged contact and mixing of two other natural languages). Many of the languages on earth that are called "pidgins" are actually now creoles (Tok Pisin, for example). 
> 
> In this chapter, Crowley and Aziraphale witness the first time a child of this village uses the pidgin without knowing how to say the phrase in either English or Norse. Thus, it is her only language and her native language and the pidgin becomes a creole, allowing the curse to recognize it once again. 
> 
> Now, there are lots of creoles and pidgins on Earth throughout all of human history, but they were not often known outside of very small regions until the modern day. So, while Crowley and Aziraphale could go find other places where pidgins were being used and talk to each other, they'd have to actually know where to go to begin with. 
> 
> **Chapter Title** : Gaderwist einn;  
> gaderwist - old english - n - friendship, marriage, intercourse, dwelling together  
> einn - old norse - adj - alone, when placed after a noun it can take on the meaning of 'only'  
> so, together they're something like "it's only marriage" <3


End file.
